garden

Washer woes, and some progress

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So our washing machine is being weird. It agitates, but when it gets to when the drum should spin and water drained, it just… doesn’t.

It’s possible the drive belt is off. We can’t check it yet. The laundry that was in the machine had to be hand wrung out and went into the drier. The girls were then sweethearts and manually removed as much water as they could, before checking it over to see what going on. Which is when they found the drum is very loose.

The only way to check, though, it to take the panel off the back. We can’t do that until the drier is done. We can’t pull the washing machine forward very far, because there is a step blocking it. We have to wait until the drier is done, then put that out, so that we can pull the washer out around the step.

Meanwhile, I’m looking up the costs of a new washing machine. Depending on what we find, we may have to choose: do we spend the money to fix an old machine that has a high probability of breaking again in the near future, or do we dip into the contingency fund again, to get a new, energy efficient machine with a warranty on it. Who knows. It might be an easy fix. Or we might not even see the problem, even after opening it up.

We should know better, tonight.

Meanwhile, I was able to head outside this afternoon for a bit of work in the old garden area. I’m tired of damaging the blade of our lawnmowers when mowing in the old garden area, by hitting lumps of dirt I don’t see in the grass. Right now, while it’s still short, is the best time to do something about it. Since we’re limited in tools, that means manual labour. :-D

Basically, I went looking for the lumps with the tops flattened from betting hit with the mower blade, then dug at them with the potato fork, to break them up and loosen the soil.

In the above picture, I have actually broken up one of those lumps.

You can see why I keep hitting them with the mower!

The root systems are holding the sod together quite a bit, but they will be broken up further. After going over them with the fork, we’ll go back with hoes and break them up further, spreading the soil into the low areas and leveling things off as much as we can.

I took advantage of being out there with the fork and removed some of the larger weeds and tree saplings.

Well… almost the tree saplings.

I’d gone through the area last summer, pulling many of them out, or cutting them with pruning shears. While breaking up hills of soil, I spotted one that was larger and a definite tripping hazard.

Guess how I know that? :-D

I discovered that I was not going to get this one out, without other tools.

It was actually growing out of a long root.

There are NO trees near this. The closest ones are the strip of self-sown trees along where the squash beds are now, and the tree at the end of that strip is a maple. Maples don’t send shoots out like this. Poplars do, but the nearest poplars are along the fence, among the lilacs. There are more along the other fence line. From the direction this root is running, those further away poplars are the more likely source.

We’re talking about 100 feet away.

I left it until I can come back with cutting tools, later.

Then there’s stuff like this.

This is a burdock root. I keep mowing over them, and they keep coming back, because of roots like this.

And this is Rolando Moon, helping me…

More specifically, this is Greater Burdock, or Arctium lappa. We have it growing all over, and it can make quite a barrier to some of the sheds and equipment! While it can be used for food or medicine, it’s not something we actually want to cultivate, and we certainly don’t want it in taking over.

I wasn’t able to get all of this root out. It broke off, instead. Those roots go very deep!

I worked only on the West side of the old garden area.

It looks a bit like a bunch of giant skunks were digging for grubs! :-D

There is a smaller area to the East of the squash bed, but that area is much worse for hills that need to be broken down, and there’s at least one large rock that I hope to be able to take out. It all depends on how much of it is still buried. It was the heat and wind that drove me indoors early! But not before I checked a few other things.

The stack of wood from the maples we had cut away from the roof has given us a handy seat to stop and rest at. I was going to take a bit of a break there, before continuing on.

That seat is now occupied…

This stack is at the maple grove, but the red ants that built this brought spruce needles from across the North yard, all the way to this log! It’s about 40 or 50 feet, just to the edge of the spruce grove. They’d have to go past the mulch we put down last year, to get to where the needles are! I was seeing ants going in and out of cracks at the other end of the log, so this nest goes all the way through.

Well, this is a log I won’t be using for any projects. !!

I also checked on the grapes again.

I just love these baby grape clusters! Right now, these grapes are as big as they were, fully ripe, our first summer here, when we discovered the grapes in among the spirea. Last year was their first year cleared of the spirea and trained up the trellis, and there were no grapes at all. I’m sure that summer was one they needed to recover from the changes! I’m very happy to see how well they’re doing now – even after I accidentally killed one of the vines! Which you can see on the left of the photo. Other vines are climbing up the dead one, so I’m leaving it there.

Another area I checked on was indoors. At the beginning of the month, I’d rigged up the dehumidifier that was down there when we first moved in. Here is how it looked , after running for a while.

That damp spot had been an actual puddle. The well pump was covered in condensation, water was collecting under the pump, the pressure tank and the hot water tank. The new well pump, still in its box, was sitting on pieces of wood to elevate it, but the wood itself was getting so damp, I added some pieces of foam – they look like pool noodles with a cut from end to end, and I don’t know why they’re there – to elevate it even more.

This is how it looks now.

Where the puddle had been is now just a dry stain. There is no condensation on any of the pipes, and everything under the tanks and pump are now dry. There is only one spot, where the concrete has broken away, that is damp.

On the other side of the divider wall is where the new screened window is, and even that area has just a damp spot in the lowest area. Even the areas under the furnaces are just damp not wet. I unplugged the blower fan to let the motor cool down, but right now, even with the continued rains, I don’t think it is an issue anymore. When it was just the blower fan going, it did help, but the concrete was still wet enough that a white mold was starting to grow. There is no sign of that, now. I was a bit concerned about the screen window, since it’s “roof” had fallen off. There is nothing to prevent the rains from going in through there, other than the fact that it is so low.

There is a possibility of more storms or rain tonight. There is an odd weather system coming our way right now. Instead of a large mass of rain with patches of more severe conditions in it, the radar shows mostly clear, with dozens of tiny storms, moving across the prairies. There’s just no way of knowing if something will hit us until… well… it hits us!

And now it’s time to check – again – if the drier is done, and we can check out what’s wrong with the washing machine.

The Re-Farmer

Heat wave continues

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I missed my daily post yesterday. The day was pretty much a total write off!

This is largely why…

This screencap was taken shortly before 1pm. We were at 30C/86F with a humidex of 37C/98F, but we easily reached the expected high of 33C/91F and humidex of 39C/102F by the end of the afternoon. The hottest time of day is typically about 4:30-5pm.

I realize you folks living in the south are probably getting a giggle out of our thinking this is really hot, but my goodness, how do you guys put up with it??? :-D It’s a lot cooler in the house, thankfully. Well, on the main floor, at least, but we were all just melting. The girls have it the worst, on the second floor, though.

We ended up with three weather warnings at the same time, too – for the heat, high water levels and potential flash floods! Several towns and cities in the South West of our province did get hit with flash floods and severe thunderstorms. Some areas even had tornado warnings! I was keeping a close eye on the weather radar, watching the storms.

They went right past us!

The most severe parts of the system got pushed up to the North of us, and while some towns to the West certainly got hit, we got the edges of the system. Just some rain!

I am increasingly fascinated by our little local climate bubble. What is it about our geographical location that causes these weather systems to be pushed away or around? There are a lot of lakes in the area, including one huge one, so that certainly would have an effect. We’re kinda in the middle, East to West, between the biggest ones, but well to the South of the middle, from North to South.

Whatever the reason, I’m thankful that it means we aren’t getting hit by the worst of the storm systems. I really feel for some of the small towns and cities in the South-west, though. They get hit by every one!!

Today is going to be another hot one; we’re expected to hit 32C/89F with a humidex of 39C/102F again, by about 5 and 6pm. We still have the three alerts for heat, high water and flooding, throughout the South of our province. Right now, however, we’re sunny and clear. It’s insanely humid. Yesterday, I made a quick trip into town to get a couple of our 18L water jugs refilled. Even though the water was not at all cold, the jugs were covered with condensation by the time I got home! This morning, everything was still wet, as if we’d just had a rainfall.

We did, but at about 3am!

In the old kitchen garden, one of my mother’s roses has been blooming, for the first time since we moved out here.

This rose was little more than a scraggly stick for the past couple of summers. It’s overshadowed by one of the ornamental apple trees, and I really wasn’t sure if it would make it. We still worked around it, when cleaning out and mulching the garden, just to give it a chance, and it seems to have paid off! All the other roses around the house are the white Cherokee roses. I’m glad the one different type of rose is managing to survive.

When checking the sunflowers, I found another loss.

This pretty much confirms it’s a deer. The other critters it might have been would have clipped it much lower down.

It’s like a deer decided to have a quick snack while passing through!

This one will likely survive, but I doubt it will produce a seed head.

Thankfully, lots more seedlings are popping up. The replacement variety I’d picked up had lots of smaller seeds in the package than the ones I got before, so my daughter was able to plant two or three in each spot. We’ll actually have some to thin out, as they get bigger.

Assuming nothing eats them, first!

The Re-Farmer

Today’s roundup: they want out!

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I’m glad we got as much of the mowing as we did, yesterday. It has been raining on and off since last night, and today they are predicting thunderstorms, with possible hail and tornadoes (?!?!) this evening and overnight.

We may get high winds, but tornadoes are not an issue where we live. Water spouts on the lake, maybe, but these weather systems tend to move to the south of us. I checked the weather radar and it looks like we’ll probably get hit by the edges of the system. So I am expecting rain and high winds, but the main body of the system looked like it’ll hit the city. Which means my brother and sister’s places will likely get hit harder than us.

While doing my rounds this morning, I spotted a Rosencrantz.

We think she has a litter of kittens, somewhere, but so far have seen no sign of them. She comes here for food, then disappears.

I had both Creamsicle and Potato Beetle joining me this morning, but they were not happy with each other. Moments after I took this picture, Creamsicle attacked Potato Beetle! I actually had to break up the fight. :-(

I checked the gardens, and the sunflowers. There are now about 26 sunflowers sprouting, that I can see.

The one on the left is an Early Russian, the one on the right is Giganteus.

Then there is this one.

Deadeus.

Looks like something just bit the top off!

Back in the house, I had to help my daughter with the kittens.

They can climb to the top of the stairs, now, and they want out!

So we spent some time, distracting them.

Dave came down to babysit, while Beep Beep went upstairs. :-D

They really like the lilac branches, and my box of wood chips. This, it’s okay for them to get into. I have a separate, sealed, container for sawdust.

So it looks like today will be an inside day. Time to catch up on little projects I need to finish. Maybe even spend some time with the kitties, and practice carving on that spoon blank that came with the carving kit. :-)

And mabye playing a bit of Civ VI. I used to play Civ II, years ago, but didn’t like the newer ones. Loved Alpha Centauri. Then I moved on to Age of Empires, and others in the series. I stopped playing completely for a while, because the games user interfaces changed so much, I couldn’t figure out how to to the most basic things. The tutorials were no help at all. Civ VI became available for free recently, and I am finding it has become user friendly again, and actually fun to play. Perfect for a rainy day.

Well. Until it starts storming, and we shut all the electronics down! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Gardening progress: sunflowers are in!

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Today has been a lovely, cool day! Perfect to get those sunflowers done.

I had assistants.

When I started filling the holes with the soil mixture, the Potato Beetle decided to sit his butt over one of the next holes! My first thought was that he was taking a dump and I went to push him away. He just flopped onto the ground and looked at me as if to say, “Yes. Rub my belly. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Then he moved over to the next hole and sat over it, watching me. When I moved to fill that one, he went to the next one and lay down.

With his butt over the hole.

What a weird cat. :-D

Creamsicle was also fascinated by the holes.

I have no idea what he was seeing down there that was so interesting! :-D

The soil mixture in the little pool got quite a lot of rainwater, along with the water I’d already put into it, so it was quite saturated. I was still finding pockets of dry peat, though! Still, this was perfect, as it meant I didn’t have to drag buckets of water over the very rough ground to water the soil mix, first. I could just go straight to planting.

I decided to alternate the two varieties. The row still marked with flags starts and ends with the variety that can grow 10-12 feet high, while the other row starts and ends with the variety that can grow 6-8 feet high. The varieties ended up lining up with each other where the two rows overlap.

And that will be it for today, with it being Sunday. I just did what had to be done, before we got more rain (if we get more rain; we’ll see if the forecasts are right for a change).

Next, for this area, we will be adding a straw mulch, little by little, as well as taking the opportunity to dig up the burdock that’s starting to come up, as well as the self-sown trees that are showing up.

Tomorrow, weather willing, the priority will be to get more of the squash transplants in. Quite a few more are ready, now. And I might even be seeing some of those gourds finally emerging, too!

Putting in a garden this year is really changing what is being worked on outside. The original plan was to spend the first 2 years cleaning up the inner yard, the next year or two working on the outer yard, and moving beyond the outer yard as we could, after that. With my husband ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks last year, and many trips to the city to see specialists, things got more focused. Which worked out, since we ended up focusing on cleaning up where the old wood pile used to be, and finding that wonderful soil we have planted the carrots in. For this year, we will continue to work on cleaning up the spruce grove, but will also have to get things done in the outer yard, and now keep up on the garden beds. Oh, and build that new outhouse as a cordwood practice building, too.

First, the garden needs to be planted.

Then, we can mark out where we want to put the cordwood building and start clearing the space and removing sod. Cleaning up the spruce grove, etc., will continue in between stages of building. I’m hoping I can borrow my brother and his trailer, and visit a salvage yard for materials to use as a floor/base. I’m thinking along the lines of pavers, but who knows what else we might find! :-)

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Gardening progress: transplanting

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Today, it was time to transplant some of the squashes we started from seed indoors.

I am really hoping we’re not jumping the gun, here, but many were outgrowing their Jiffy Pellets and really needed to get in the ground. In the future, for things that need to be started so early indoors, I am thinking it would be better to go straight into 4 inch pots, instead. That would give a more flexible timeline for getting them in the ground.

In going through the seedlings to see which ones had their true leaves and were ready to transplant, I counted out 16 in total, so I decided to do two rows of 8. I think most of them – at least the largest ones – are from the zucchini surprise mix, but after the trays got knocked over yesterday, they are all going to be a surprise! :-D

I used flags I picked up at the hardware store to mark the first row at 2 feet apart.

Though we mulched the area last summer, and the soil has improved quite noticeably, we are still dealing with lots of rocks and a soil in need of amendments. Several times, when placing the flags, I hit rocks and had to poke around to find somewhere I could push the wire in. We needed to figure out a way to get around that, and this is what I’ve come up with.

The first step was to open a hole in the mulch to the surface of the soil (removing any rocks I found in the process.

I also prepared a soil mix.

The wheelbarrow still had some straw on the bottom that I didn’t bother taking out when I dumped in a bag of garden soil I also picked up at the hardware store (only because they were on sale! *L*) and a couple of spade fulls of peat. This got mixed together with plenty of water. The dry peat was actually being blown away by the wind while I mixed! It took a while to get it wet enough for the next step.

Into each opening I made in the mulch, I added a spade full of the soil mixture. Then a hole was made in the middle of each one for the transplants, with more water added as well.

Each squash was then transplanted and secured in their own little “hill” of soil mix.

Then I mixed some more soil and peat and repeated the process for the next row, which was made about 2 feet away from the first.

Which was when I discovered I had 2 extra seedlings! LOL So I added them to the ends of the rows, taking a little bit of the soil mixture from each of the other plants, to transplant the extras into. So we now have a total of 18 surprise squashes transplanted.

Once both rows were planted, they were mulched with more straw. When we add a trellis, it will go between the two rows.

After the straw was placed – with the wind trying to take much of it away! – I gave the bed a fairly thorough soaking, to dampen the straw. Not too much, as I didn’t want to shock the transplants with cold water in this heat! I will set up a sprinkler over it this evening. Unless the predicted showers make it to our area. It’s been quite a hot day, and the rain will be most welcome.

When I was done and inside the house, I checked the weather. My phone app said it was 18C, (“feels like 18C”) (46F).

They lie.

I checked the app on my desktop and it said we were at 26C, with a “feels like” of 28C (79 and 82F). That was certainly the more accurate one!

Our barometer agrees.

Since we cleaned this out and refilled it, I have never seen it this high!

We had thunderstorms predicted for the next couple of days, but now those have been pushed back to Sunday. Whether the storms reach us is always touch and go, but I’d like to find some way to cover the transplants, if we do. The straw will protect them, but only so much.

Meanwhile, we’ll be keeping watch on what’s left in the seed trays. We won’t be transplanting as much as we hoped, but right now the only thing I’d say is a total loss is the fennel. I still have hopes for the gourds to emerge! Not that I’d be able to tell which ones they are at this point. :-D

Still, I hope we’ll have a couple more rows of squash in this garden bed by the end of the month. Tomorrow, however, the plan is to get the sunflower seeds in. :-)

We shall see if planting them in their own little islands of soft, stone-less soil will work!

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: mowing the big garden

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Today started early for me, as I had to drive to my mother’s to take her for an appointment to get her CT scan. She had a requirement to drink a litre of water an hour before her appointment, then restrictions on going to the bathroom shortly before, so I wanted to make sure she got there early enough to not have to worry about the restriction. Given how long it takes to drive from her town to the city where her appointment was, that meant she had to start drinking her water while we were driving.

She also had to fast 4 hours before the scan, but my mother went a bit overboard and, aside from eating some crackers with her morning medications, she had fasted since the supper! So as soon as we were done, I made sure to take her to lunch somewhere fast.

By the time I got home, it was mid afternoon. The weather was holding, so I decided to break out the push mower and get as much done as I could. (I only got rained on a tiny bit! :-D ) I was going to start working in the trees, but then decided to do the old, overgrown garden, instead.

When my brother brought the mower back, he walked me through what he had done. It started fine when we tested it, but he mentioned that he felt the prime pump wasn’t doing its job. So, just in case it wouldn’t start, he showed me where to open up the side of the engine, where there is a filter and an opening behind it, and told me I could basically just splash some fuel into it, and that should be enough to start it.

I’m very glad he told me that, because it wouldn’t start. I ended up having to do it twice! The second time was after I ran out of gas, but I found that if I filled the tank before it was completely empty, I didn’t have to do it again. Except I didn’t just splash it. I tipped the mower onto its side and poured a tiny bit, using the cap of the jerry can spout to hold the tiny bit of fuel I needed. After that, it started just fine.

Mowing the old garden ended up taking about 4 hours.

It is not a small garden.

It was also incredibly rough. Plus, I had to look out for stuff like this.

Thankfully, it wasn’t sticking too far out of the ground, but that’s something we’re going to have to dig up at some point. Maybe. Depends on how big it is, underground!

Here are the before photos.

Right now, the garden area is split by the section we covered with straw to mulch it, used some RoundUp when things started to grow through the mulch, then covered with tarps, that I worked around. That is where we are hoping to be able to start planting something next year. I also tried to get into those trees my mother left growing when she transplanted her raspberry bushes, as much as I could.

Here is what it looks like now.

Did I mention it was rough in there?

This picture barely begins to show how rough it was! It’s hard to grasp from the photo, just how big that hill in the foreground is. When this area was last plowed, this is where the tractor turned, so there are huge ridges all over.

If the weather continues to hold tomorrow, I want to work on mowing between the trees in the maple grove, plus the area leading from the big garden to the gate. My mother said she planted elms in there, so the area had not been mowed, but I see no signs of them.

And now I have to try and get the burrs out of my pant legs.

The Re-Farmer

Work done, things found and kitten fix

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While doing my rounds yesterday evening, I decided to prune away the dead parts of the mock orange at the clothes line platform.

It did so well last year, it’s a shame so much of it died over the winter. At the same time, I was happy to see the tiniest of leaf buds struggling to emerge from some main branches. I pruned all the dead stuff off and cleared out some Virginia Creeper that was trying to re-establish itself. That’s a wheel barrow full, right there. Now that it’s all open and pruned, I’m thinking it will recover quite well.

While hauling this away, I also started picking up branches in the West yard that had come down in the storms. I kept finding more and more branches – most were just small enough to be hidden by the grass, but still be enough that I wouldn’t want to hit them with the mower! I probably cleared another 2 wheelbarrows worth from the West lawn, including the section behind the storage house. I found more in the maple grove. I’m glad I was able to mow as much as I did, as it made it easier to find the fallen branches. Branches that had fallen into the areas I still need to get to with the weed trimmer were almost completely hidden! I’m also glad I brought my pruners with me, because I ended up cutting away spirea and caragana that was trying to reclaim the spaces between the lilacs, plum and apple trees again. It’s going to be a constant battle to keep those under control!

Then I checked on the transplanted raspberries and found a surprise.

A single asparagus spear!

It wasn’t there a few days ago. It wasn’t there last year.

It may be that, after having cleared away the weeds and mulching the area, a hidden root was finally able to grow.

Of course, I did have to go into the sun room to get my pruning sheers, and managed to get this adorable picture.

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Prep for winter: the old kitchen garden

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Well, today was certainly a productive day outside!

I decided to see how much I could get done on the old kitchen garden today, and ended up finishing the job!  So I’m happy. :-)

When I came out of the house, I startled cats in all directions, including that new grey ball of fluff.  A few of them even hung around while I moved things around the garden to prepare.

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