The first seed head to blossom is already losing its little flowers!
I think I should be able to harvest it and set it to dry at this point; at least that’s what I’ve learned from my research. But would the seeds normally be this white?
I think I’ll leave it a bit longer. So far, no birds seem to be going for it.
Pollinators aren’t’ the only ones interested in the budding sunflowers.
The leaves make great shelter for resting dragonflies!
Those leaves have a lot of holes in them. I can’t see what’s causing them, though. They still seem to be doing all right, so I’m not concerned at this point.
We now have two seed heads on the originally planted giant varieties, opening up.
The first one to start opening is getting big enough, the stalk is starting to droop quite a bit – which means short little me can see it better! :-D
Nice to see the pollinators busy at work on the second one to start opening!
Speaking of pollinators, they are just loving our squash bed right now. So many new flowers. Including in the pumpkins.
Look out big this pumpkin is getting!
This pumpkin mound has two plants growing in it, lots of flowers but, so far, there is just this one pumpkin that seems to be growing. There is another on the second plant, but it doesn’t seem to be getting bigger.
This one is on the plant in the mound I’d planted 5 seeds in, and it took so long to come up, I thought none would germinate. Now, not only is the plant just big as the ones that sprouted earlier, but it has a pumpkin that’s almost as big as the other one!
I still don’t thing there is enough of a growing season left for the pumpkins to fully develop and ripen, but I’m still enjoying how they are doing now.
Among the things we chose to plant for our first garden since moving out here were Yukon Gem potatoes. My view when it comes to planting potatoes is, since they are so inexpensive and easy to find in the grocery stores, we’ll choose a variety that are not available unless we plant them ourselves. Yukon Gem are a yellow flesh variety that is supposed to be more resistant to disease, and are good for both fresh eating and storage.
We only got 6 pounds for our first try, so we’re not expecting to have any to store. At least not for long! :-D
The biggest thing we did differently, though, was to use the Ruth Stout method. When my mother had her garden in this location, she had my dad or my brothers to plow it for her, every year. She had a working tiller (we’ve got 4 or 5 lying about, and none work), and 5 kids to help pick rocks.
While the area did get plowed before we moved here, no one’s been picking rocks for ages, and the plow job was a bad one. So what we’ve got to work with is rock hard soil, full of rocks, and very little equipment. The traditional method of growing and hilling potatoes was simply not manageable.
Among my recommended posts is a Canadian gardener who tried the Ruth Stout method in his own garden. He sowed his potatoes on top of hard, grassy ground, covered them with a thick layer of hay for mulch, and at the end of the season, he had lots of potatoes, and the ground beneath was greatly improved.
We didn’t have hay, so I used straw from the bale we got last fall. What we don’t use to cover our septic tank gets used for mulch, and we still have plenty left this year. Mulch was already a big part of our plans to improve and amend the soil.
Well, the potato plants seem to struggle through the mulch, and never got really bushy. They did bloom, however, and at one point I dug around under the mulch to see if I could get some baby potatoes to try.
Even though this was after a rainfall, and the straw was damp, the ground beneath was bone dry. The only potato I could find was the mushy seed potato.
So… I was beginning to think this was a write off. I don’t know if it was because I used straw instead of hay, but it seems like the straw absorbed all the moisture, and it never made it to the soil.
While going through the garden over the past few days, I’ve been watching the potatoes. Some of them have already died back completely.
This morning, I decided to dig up the 3 potato plants that had died back on one end of a potato bed.
After moving the straw, there wasn’t much to see.
That is the seed potato, and no sign of any others. Only after digging, did I find one tiny potato under this plant.
It wasn’t a complete loss, though.
A few others were visible once the straw was moved, and they were looking pretty good.
Time to carefully dig around with the potato fork and see what I could find.
The first thing I noticed was how different the soil was. Even with plenty of rocks to dig around, the soil itself was much, much softer. I even found worms, as well as a single slug. :-D
So even if we don’t get a lot of potatoes out of here, we will have at least improved the soil!
How many potatoes did I find?
Here they are! Our first potatoes!
I’d say these were from 3 plants but, really, they’re from 2 plants. You can just see the itty, bitty potato that I found by the seed potato of the third one.
Of all the larger potatoes, one had a hole in it from a bug. The rest were solid.
I’m rather pleased! After what I found earlier, I was really wasn’t expecting to find much of anything.
Now to think about how to cook them for supper this evening. :-) I’ll likely make them very plain, so we can get a sense of how this variety tastes, compared to what we usually have.
One of the things we planted this spring was a couple of rows of kohl rabi (or is it kohlrabi? I have seen it both ways…).
They have not done well.
Of all that we planted, there were about 4 surviving plants that sprouted.
Of those, a couple got et by deer.
The last two, however, were getting quite big and leafy and looking to have some potential, though there was as yet no sign of a bulb forming.
Then, something got at them.
At first, it looked like the caterpillars from cabbage moths. I found a whole bunch on the underside of the leaves, wreaking havoc, and got rid of them.
Soon after, however, the leaves were looking even worse.
I took this picture yesterday. These are the culprits.
The leaves are absolutely infested with these teeny, tiny black beetles.
I hosed them off after taking the picture, but when I checked them today, they were back, and there’s hardly anything left of the leaves, but the veins and stems.
So… kohl rabi is a bust for our garden!
Darn. I was looking forward to having our own. It’s one of those “treat” vegetables that we buy only once in a while.
At least whatever those beetles are, they are completely uninterested in anything else we’re growing.
It’s a good thing we started so many squashes, and ended up transplanting them as such different times. The ones that sprouted later and got transplanted later got missed by that last frost of the season, and have been quite prolific. A couple of frost damaged ones in the first bed, both zucchini, recovered enough that they got quite large and are producing green and yellow zucchini for us.
Others…
They’re still working in it.
Some have started bravely blooming, putting out flowers bigger than their leaves!
With the tiniest of yellow zucchini!
I finally remembered to get a picture of the back row. The plants with the bamboo poles marking them are all ones I have been able to confirm as the birdhouse gourds. I put bricks or rocks under some of them, to support the weight of where the leaves are growing out, as the stems are a bit long and gangly.
You can see a pumpkin mound to the right of centre in the background, and way at the far end are the squashes from the second planting that have done so well.
While there were very few squash to collect this morning, there are so many new flowers right now, and lots of pollinators, so I am expecting a second wave of squash to harvest, soon.
I am looking forward to having enough to make more of the quick pickles!
I got to follow up on a couple of things this evening.
We hit 32C/89F today, so once things got cooler, I headed out to water the garden beds.
Yesterday evening, after letting the silicon sealant cure for more than 24 hours, I filled the rain barrel by the garden, so today was the litmus test. I’m happy to report, there were no leaks at all at the cracks in the barrel.
With the barrel set up in the shade of a tree, the water in it was actually still cool! But not cold, which I’m sure the squash pants appreciated. Some of the leaves look like they got shocked by the cold, the last time I used a hose to water them.
While watering the beets and carrot beds, I startled a little friend.
It even gave me a chance to get pretty close with my phone to take pictures, before disappearing. This is the first time I’ve seen one of the green tree frogs jumping out of these beds. Gosh, they’re pretty!
While there, I decided to check on my other green friend, in the chokecherry tree by the junk pile.
The caterpillar is still there – and noticeably bigger! If you look at the veins in the leaf to compare between the two dates, you can see he’s quite a bit longer. The colouring has smoothed out, too. I’ll have to check again over the next while; he might get as big as the ones I found when I was a kid!
I’m happy to add that I saw flashes if kittens while making my way between the garden beds. While I was checking on the caterpillar, Butterscotch even emerged from the spirea to say hello and let me pet her. :-)
I’m glad she didn’t move her kittens.
The next thing I’ll be following up on is how things go tomorrow! We’re headed to the city for my husband’s first appointment with the pain clinic. I’m glad it’s finally happening, though to be honest, I don’t have much confidence in how it’ll go. After all these years, I think I’ve gotten way too jaded, but between the 2 years it took for my husband to get a 14 page form to fill out, and what was in the form itself, I am already not impressed with this place.
Mind you, I don’t think I’ll even be able to go in with him. They said he’ll have to wear a mask to go in, without anything about medical exemptions – and he has several conditions that would apply! I already know wearing a mask triggers my chronic cough, so maybe we’ll both be able to get exemptions, but I doubt it. Another reason for my expectations to be very low.
Our first summer here, when we found the grapes among the overgrown spirea, the ripe grapes were barely bigger than the seeds. I was still excited, because… we had grapes! And they made great jelly (this from someone who does NOT like jams and jellies), and still tasted great, straight from the vine.
This year, they look massive in comparison. I am really looking forward to seeing how they are when fully ripe!!
This morning, I emptied the can of Plasit Dip on the cracks in the rain barrel.
Yesterday, I found a couple of hoola hoops at a dollar store in town, and this afternoon, I dug out the role of window screen mesh we found while cleaning out the basement. I hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to attach the mesh to the hoops, and decided to just sew it on. The only problem with that was holding the mesh in place, so I ended up applying the WeldBond glue I’ve got to the hoop, then laying the mesh I’d cut to size on top of it.
Made a real mess on my hands, pressing it into place, but thankfully, the glue washes off easily.
After it had set long enough, I then just sewed the mesh on with a needle and thread.
It’s a bit on the light side and I want to figure out how to add weight to it. With the screen directly on the top of the barrel, any weight on the hoop could potentially tear the screen. I’ll probably just put a board across the top.
Here are the areas I sprayed with the Plasti Dip, both inside and out. I even sprayed areas that I wasn’t sure was cracked, or just a deep scratch, just in case.
That big crack at the top? It’s actually sealed. I didn’t think it would work, but with enough layers, it filled the gap! Most of the seal on that one is on the inside layers.
After giving the inside of the barrel a quick rinse, it was time to fill it and test out the seal.
As of tonight, it is completely waterproof. When I do my rounds in the morning, I’ll see if it held up through the night.
I’ll also be able to water the garden using water that has had a chance to warm up, instead of ice cold well water. :-D
The second hoop is currently sitting in the basement with the mesh and some glue. Tomorrow, I’ll use needle and thread to attach the screen securely, then put it over the rain barrel by the sun room. It’ll be nice to use the water from there, and not have my watering can’s head get clogged up with leaves and other debris. :-)
It took a while to get the garden rain barrel to the point it could be filled, but I think it was worth it to keep adding more layers to the cracks, with lots of time in between to cure.
It may not be pretty, but it’ll do the job! And that’s all that matters. :-)
I’ve just come back from adding a second layer of Plasti Dip to the picnic table legs and rain barrel, before starting on cooking. Then I realized I completely forgot to share a couple of things in my gardening post!
This is one of them; a friend among the cucamelons!
When watering the garden beds, we have been seeing a LOT of little frogs all over – more than I’ve ever seen before – but we do not see these green little tree frogs often.
We need to fill in those openings along the outside of the chimney blocks we’re using as planters. The tree frog will get out easily enough, but I had one of the other frogs end up in one, and it couldn’t get out. I ended up putting a stick in the hole for it to climb.
My mother also had a “gift” for me, yesterday.
A whole bunch of cucumbers! One of the local Hutterite colonies is quite involved with places like were my mother lives. Every year they host a dinner for widows and widowers, they regularly provide entertainment, and so on. Every now and then, they drop off produce in the lobby for anyone who wants! This time, it was a whole bunch of cucumbers. My mother took a lot (I really hope she didn’t take more than her fair share. :-( ) and gave me about half of what she had. I haven’t decided what to do with them, yet, but she plans to do quick pickles.
I’ve haven’t done pickles since I was a kid helping my mother! We might just make cucumber salads with them.
