For the next while, I’ll be going through my old posts and videos about our 2024 garden, looking at how things worked out, and use that information to decide what we will do in our 2025 garden.
I first looked over our plans for perennials, our food forest and the fall garlic, which had already been planted by then.
The garlic hasn’t really changed. We’ve got next year’s garlic already planted – this time using garlic we harvested, rather than buying more.
The crocuses… that was an experiment that I’ll talk about more, later.
For fruit and berry trees, we just didn’t have the budget to buy more, but we did at least get the two Trader mulberry saplings transplanted. Of the other things we hoped to be able to do, getting everbearing strawberries were the only thing we managed.
For root vegetables and tubers, we did have the potatoes, which turned out different than planned. While we intended to skip things like beets, radishes and turnips this year, I had intended to plant a lot of carrots. Instead, we planted very few, simply because we never got the space to plant more.
The plans for onions and shallots were hit and miss, but we did get them in, with some bonus onions that I will talk about later.
We intended to scale back on tomatoes, but ended up with way more than planned! There were some distinct differences among them that I will have to note for the future.
With corn, peas and beans, that changed a lot. I had intended to plant many different varieties of beans, including shelling beans, but that just didn’t happen. Among the ones that did get planted, much went wrong. It was similar with the peas. As for the corn, we did plant one short season variety that actually did pretty well, under the circumstances. There are things I would want to change with growing corn that way, though, and while I’d like to plant another short season variety next year, we’ve already jumped the gun in other areas – more on that when I write about our winter sowing!
With peppers, herbs and greens, that was all over the place. We ended up planting more peppers than intended, and they did quite well, even if they were behind in maturity, like just about everything else was this year. We ended up planting very few herbs and had issues with the greens.
It was our melons and winter squash that really changed how our garden went this year, as we ended up with so many! Way more than expected, even though we ended up not planting some varieties at all. The summer squash, however, was a very different story. We did try a couple of gourds. One of my regular experiments that our spring weather did not give a chance to succeed.
We did manage two types of eggplant, with moderate success. We wanted to try salsify, sunflowers and possibly cucumbers for fresh eating, not pickling, but that didn’t pan out.
So many other garden related things ended up not happening. More raised beds, rebuilding the garden tap, starting a new garden shed build… none of that happened.
I’d hoped to start reclaiming garden beds in the main garden area from the previous year and continuing on the trellis tunnel builds. Instead, a priority was put on shifting the existing beds to what will be their permanent positions. That gave us longer, narrower beds, as they await the logs we need to harvest to frame them. We still managed to fit quite a bit into them, and the narrowing of these low raised beds made them easier for me to reach into.
All in all, this turned out to be a very different year than expected, with spring weather playing a major part in slowing down growth. Every year, we learn a little bit more about what we need to do to better protect our garden from the elements, with even the low raised beds turning out to be a major element that saved our garden.
And so, to start, here is our spring garden tour video for 2024, taken on what turned out to be a rather cold day!
I hope you enjoy this series of garden posts. Do feel free to leave feedback in the comments, too!
There are no food bowls in the sun room right now. I checked the critter cam a few times during the night, and would sometimes see a cat wandering around where their platform and cat beds used to be, seeming lost! This morning, there was a whole crowd of them, milling about, waiting for their breakfast. They were all over the baby jail, inside and out, but there are no beds or blankets inside it right now, either.
As I fed them, I counted only 17, though.
With yesterday’s high winds, while checking around the yard, I was surprised to find just a couple of fallen branches, and just one broken tree.
The trunk of a poplar snapped off and will need to be cleared out. There’s also a live spruce tree nearby that has been slowly falling over, but it’s been doing that for years now. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. The only reason it’s not on the ground already it because it’s leaning against another tree. The dead trees around it, however, are all still standing straight!
It looks like we won’t be getting any haskaps again this year. The one “Mr.” haskap is leafing wonderfully, and even showing flower buds. The “Mrs.” haskap that was purchased and planted the same year is barely showing leaf buds. The smaller “Mrs.” haskap that was planted the following year is actually further ahead, but is really small compared to the other two. There’s just 1 year’s difference between them, so it should be much closer in size.
We’ll see how they do this year. I keep saying we need to transplant them to a better location, but every time I talk about it with the girls, they are concerned that moving them would damage them too much. Considering how poorly they are doing now, I don’t see what difference that makes. For the length of time we’ve had them, we should be getting plenty of berries every year by now, but there’s just no possibility of proper cross pollination to happen.
Of course, I checked the bed with the peas, carrots and spinach planted. I think I might, maybe, possibly be seeing a carrot sprout or two, and there are no peas coming up yet, but we’re finally seeing spinach!
The garlic, meanwhile, is seeing an absolute growth spurt, in all the beds they are planted in!
Syndol was following me around this morning, and he is frustrating me to no end! He kept going into the garden beds as I was checking them. I’ll have to put something around the bed with the spinach to keep him out! We can’t put a cover back on it, because of the T posts set up inside, which will have netting set up for the peas to climb, later on. The tiny raised bed that has its own cover is closed at the ends, so cats can’t get inside. Instead, Syndol climbs on top and uses it like a hammock! He’s the only cat I’ve seen that does that, but I’m sure there are others. I have to put another support hoop in the middle, plus a cross piece at the top, because there’s no way we’ll be able to keep the cats from climbing it.
But not today.
Today, the focus is back on the sun room. First, the windows in the plant corner need to be cleaned, then the second light hung back up over where the makeshift table will be set up. After that, we can set up the plant table over the baby jail, and bring the cat beds and blankets back.
Washing those was quite the thing! We split them all into two loads, and both loads had to be washed twice. Actually, I think my daughter washed the second load a third time, during the night. The amount of debris that had to be cleaned out of the washing machine’s tub was rather shocking, too. Some of the bedding needed a lot of mashing and bashing, as the layers inside got all messed up and bunched up. There’s one large cat bed that was donated to use that I’ve just not been able to get flat and even again. I’m serious considering opening up a seam so I can reach inside and break up the filling. The cats hardly even use it, because gets so lumpy after being washed.
So that’s my main goal today. Getting the plant side of the sun room done. Then the tools and storage side can be worked on.
That side, I’m afraid, it probably going to have a lot more messes hidden among the stuff they’ve knocked about. Now that everything’s thawed out, there’s an unfortunate smell, and it has to be coming from somewhere on that side.
At least it’s got a concrete floor that makes it much easier to clean!
I would totally do something like this. Okay, I wouldn’t be doing 350+ cats, but between the inside and outside cats right now, we total over 50 already. I would lovelovelove to have something like this where we could take in the cats that no one else will.
Because I am a total suck for the cats, and it hurts my heart to know that there are so many out there that are hurting or going hungry or sitting in shelters and no one is adopting them. Plus, having the space so that we don’t have to have situations like we have right now, were there’s too many cats for our space, and it’s so hard to get them adopted, even with the help of a shelter.
It’s that time of year! Time to look over our goals for the past year, see what got done, and reset new goals for 2023.
One major goal we had was to get the branch piles chipped. We got an estimate and planned on getting it done slowly over the year, as we could afford it.
With that in mind, I contacted the tree company and asked for an estimate to get all the dead trees cut down, but left as whole as possible, so we could salvage the wood for lumber. It would simply be faster and safer to hire someone. Unfortunately, to get them all done, it would take a 4 man crew and the estimate was $4000. Not something we could afford. Even just doing 5 trees closest to the house was beyond budget. It took until August before we could do it, and we just booked them for 3 hours (what we had a budget for) to do the big branch pile.
Well, that didn’t quite happen. Instead, they came and stayed all day. It took 8 1/2 hours, but they did the big branch pile in the outer yard, two in the maple grove, and one at the far end of the main garden area. We paid what we had cash for, and were told we could pay the rest off as we are able. We’ve got one more payment left! We also now have a lovely large pile of wood chips for the garden and tree plantings.
There is still one large branch pile in another area, but that one is getting so old and broken down, they might not be able to chip much of it. We are still clearing things in the spruce grove – something that we will slowly continue working on, probably for several more years. With the wood chipper we have, we should be able to clean up a decent amount of it ourselves, but will probably be calling them in, with their huge, industrial sized chipper, again.
Meanwhile, they left us with neatly stacked logs, cut to about 4 ft lengths, some of which we could salvage for other things, like this small garden bed, and some temporary barriers.
Eventually, the logs along the perimeter will be replaces with a low rock wall.
So getting one goal accomplished – getting the branch piles chipped – has helped us accomplish other goals, like build up some garden areas, and get some much needed mulching done.
There were several other gardening goals we worked towards, with some met, some partially met, and some delayed. As you saw in the chipping video, we got berry producing shrubs planted. Three of the five sea buckthorn didn’t make it and will need to be replaced, and I’m not sure if the one deer damaged highbush cranberry will make it, but the silver buffalo berry did quite well – which is surprising, since at one end, they all ended up under water! The Korean Pine was planted, with four out of six surviving the year.
We will be getting an apple tree and a new, cold hardy variety of mulberry in the spring. The diseased and dying crab apples still need to be taken down. We are looking to get three different colours of raspberries as well, each maturing at different times.
Our goal to expand the gardens and increase our food self sufficiency progressed, but didn’t succeed very well, due to flooding and a really bad growing year. Which means that this year, we’ll be working to improve things more, taking into account what areas saw the most flooding damage. Building up high and middle height raised beds will be a big part of that, as well as permanent trellis tunnels with middle height raised beds at their bases.
We didn’t accomplish more clean up in the spruce grove, mostly due to flooding issues and then never being able to get back to it once the flooding was done. So that goal continues. We’ll just have to slowly keep taking down those dead spruces ourselves, so we can use the wood to build raised beds with.
Speaking of wood to salvage…
One of the shed roofs finally collapsed with the heavy spring snows. I started to do some clean up of the collapsed roof and discovered much of the roof had forged nails in it!
As we continue to clean up and dismantle the shed, we plan to salvage the forged nails. We should be able to salvage a decent amount of useable wood that can be used to build something else.
Getting chicks in the spring of 2022 was a goal that was not met, nor were we able to build a chicken coop. I want to build a mobile, winter hardy chicken coop. This past summer, I took a look at an old wagon in the car graveyard that has a chassis that looks like it can be salvaged, though the wooden walls are quite rotted. I’ve since learned from my brother that this wagon is close to 100 years old, and he was quite pleased that we are interested in finding a way to save it and use it. I’m hoping we can use some of the salvaged wood from the shed and be able to build a chicken coop on the wagon base, but I’ll have to empty it and drag it out, before we can see for sure what we have to work with.
For me, building a chicken coop and having chickens is a priority, but my daughters are not on board. They are convinced having chickens will be far more expensive – particularly in vet bills – than we can afford. There is another priority that we can all agree on, though, and that is the outdoor kitchen. It will be built about where the collapsed shed is; in front of it or, if we can get it dismantled fast enough, in the same spot as the shed. It will be built mostly of whatever material we can scrounge up, but there are some things we will need to buy for it. If we can arrange a trip to a salvage yard, we should be able to get most of what we need – if budget allows.
Another ongoing goal is cleaning up that horrid junk pile. We still need to hire someone to haul it away, but it’s jut not working out. It is, however, getting slightly smaller.
We finally got this pile of unsalvageable logs from the branch pile, built up over burnable garbage too large for the burn barrel, burned. In the process, I started burning the old, rotten pallets I’d cleared from where there used to be a wood pile for the furnace. We were going to have those hauled to the dump, too, but we may was well burn them as we can, rather than pay someone to haul it away. If we only burn them in the one spot, when they’re done we can clean up the nails and stuff out of the ashes, later.
So… goals for 2023.
Continue to expand the garden, with permanent structures. That will require cutting down more dead spruce trees for the wood to build high raised beds like the one we’ve got so far (which did very well in its first growing year). We will also need to build permanent trellis tunnels, plus portable trellises that can be used in different beds, year after year.
We need to add to our food forest, with fruit trees and berry bushes. We really should be planting more nut trees, too, since they take so long before producing, but that will depend on the budget.
We need to dig up the buried hose that stretches from the house to the tap in the old garden area and replace it, now that the branch pile that was in the way is gone. What I would like to do is get a heavy duty hose and run it through a buried pipe. If we do it right, we’d be able to replace the hose, as needed, without having to dig a trench again. I suspect there will be issues with very large tree roots as we dig up the old hose, though. Some of them were not there when the tap was originally installed. Still, having that tap would make watering the garden much handier, plus it would allow us to set up a vegetable washing station, if we want.
We need to dismantle the collapsed shed, salvaging what we can in the process.
We need to build a mobile, winter hardy chicken coop.
We need to start on our outdoor kitchen, even if it’s just to build a timber frame and a roof.
Oh, my younger daughter has a goal of building a forge so she can start working on blacksmithing.
The cordwood outdoor bathroom is still a goal, but we need to get a certain group of dead spruce trees cleared first, since they will be felled and hauled out through the area we plan to build it. Until then, the old outhouse will have to do! It still needs its roof repaired and the outside painted, but it was surrounded by water for a long time, and we never got to it when the water receded. With the flooding we got, we now know we’ll have to build up the base for the cordwood building higher than the current ground level than I’d originally thought. It didn’t quite have standing water there, but it sure was close!
It will be at least a year before we can start on the cordwood outdoor bathroom. Perhaps we’ll be able to do a smaller cordwood practise building somewhere else, in the mean time. A replacement garden shed, maybe.
We really need more storage sheds. The ones we’ve got are mostly collapsing and falling apart, and the one that isn’t, is full of my parent’s stuff, that we’re basically not allowed to get rid of. There’s lots of useable stuff in there. We just can’t get at it! That will be a multi-year project. Among the limitations is the cost of lumber, and having to keep them small enough that we don’t need building permits for them. Nothing exceeding 100 sq ft, and nothing wired for electricity or plumbed. Anything that’s open ended, like hay or animal shelters, or things that can be moved, don’t need a permit and can be much larger.
Hhmm… I’m glad I looked that up. Our outdoor kitchen plan is open ended. That means, no permit needed, even if it goes over 100 sq ft. Good to know!
I would really, really like to have the well in the old pump shack checked and see if it can be activated again. At the very least, the pump itself needs new leather gaskets. It’s entirely possible that it’s the only thing that needs to be done, though I suspect work will need to be done in the pipes. Water is our major weak spot. If we lose electricity, we have no pumps. No pumps means no water. Having the outhouse and being able to cook on the BBQ or the fire pit is great, but not having access to water is a much bigger deal.
I think those are our primary goals for 2023. I’m sure some will change and new ones will be added, as circumstances dictate.
Hopefully, 2023 will be a much more productive year than 2022 was!
Actually, we’ve got it pretty good. A friend of ours is on the East coast, and they got hit with a major storm and no power. As I write this, they still don’t have electricity! Thankfully, they have a fire place to keep warm around, and are in an urban area, so they can drive to places that do have power, to recharge their devices, have a hot meal and stay warm!
We’ve been getting a gentle snowfall all day yesterday, and it’s continuing today. It is supposed to continue for the next three days, after which the temperatures are supposed to drop quite a bit. Nothing unusual for our region, but it’s going to be when we’ll get a good idea of whether or not the new roof will make a difference in how cold it gets upstairs. Looking at our 30 year records, on this date we reached a record high of 6C/43F in 1997 – and a record low of -36C/-33F in 2013!! So I’m quite content with our current -2C/28F.
The outside cats don’t seem to mind it, either!
Thanks to the cat lady’s donation of wet cat food for them, I’m still doling out a large tin of cat food, with lysine mixed in, twice a day. After I put the last and largest amount of it in the tray inside the cat house for the bitties, the bigger kittens are quite content to clean the bowl and spoon for me!
Yesterday, I counted 27, including the bitties. This morning, I “only” counted 23. I couldn’t see the bitty tuxedo in shadows, so I’ll just assume the head count was actually 24. 😁
As for the inside cats, Marlee is still doing very well. When the girls come in, she’ll go right over for pets. With one of my daughters, she really likes to hop up on the bed and start rolling around, showing us her belly.
Which had been shaved! When the cat lady trapped Marlee and was finally able to get a vet to look at her, one of the things they did was see if she need to be spayed. She had already been spayed, but had no tattoo, so along with getting other basic treatments, they gave her a tattoo. The cat lady didn’t mention they’d shaved her belly in the process, but there is a very distinct area of shorter fur still growing back. It’s a reminder of just how short the time has been, since she was rescued.
She is such a sweet little lady!
She still snarls at the other cats, though. Of course, she’s only been here less than a week, so that’s not much of a surprise!
In other things, the girls and I finally were able to do some decorating for Christmas. They’d hung the tree against the dining room door a while back, before everybody got sick. Since then, the only decorations on it where the berlingot decorations I’d hung up while the glue I’d hung while the tips dried.
Because of the cats, my daughter had to hang the tree pretty high against the door, which made adding the tree topper a bit of a challenge! 😄
Aside from the tree, we added lights and garlands along the walls and cabinets, up near the ceiling, where the cats can’t reach.
I think that’s about all we’ll do for decorating the house. It’s just too much of a pain to try and protect everything from the cats! As it is, during the night, they knocked one of the boxes of decorations onto the floor. My daughter found most of them and put them away, but I found an apple decoration somehow jammed into the toe of one of my snow boots this morning!
The girls and I also had a chance to talk about future plans. For me, it’s getting a chicken coop built and getting chickens as quickly as possible. They, on the other hand, keep trying to delay it until we can adopt out more cats. My daughter is the one that’s been paying most of the more recent vet bills, and we’ve had some very expensive cats. They’re just going on the assumption that if we get chickens, they’re all just going to get sick and we’ll have lots of vet bills. So that’s another objection they have.
When I was a kid, we had lots of chickens. At least 50, probably closer to 100, at any given time. Not once did we call a vet for them. If they died, they died. Very few of them ever got sick. Which is pretty amazing, considering my parents really didn’t make any extra effort to prevent it. We had more losses due to skunks than anything else. I keep forgetting. My daughters are essentially city girls.
One of the main reasons I want to have a mobile chicken coop that is suitable for our winters, rather than just a chicken tractor, is because I want to incorporate the chickens into prepping soil in our gardens for us. They would be excellent for eating up weed seeds, insects and other pests, while loosening the soil and fertilizing it at the same time. For that, I want to be able to move their coop to different locations, and have electric chicken fencing to keep them in place – and most predators out. My daughters, however, are concerned about things like coyotes, the cats, hawks, eagles and owls. So they are thinking of having a completely enclosed chicken yard. Which we would definitely have for the winter months.
So… I expect to be on my own when it comes to getting ready for chickens.
What they are really interested in getting started on is building our outdoor kitchen. My younger daughter and I spent quite a bit of time talking about it, while she sketched things out. We’ve worked out where we want to build it – basically, about where the shed with the collapsed roof is. If we can dismantle that and build it in the same spot, that would be great. Otherwise, right in front of it would be good, too. Among the things we need to consider is that it’s a space free of trees, and where the prevailing winds are. In that location, it’s wind from the south that we’d have to shelter from the most.
One wall will have a multi-function cooking area. We want to incorporate an oven, much like the earthen or cob ovens, where the fire gets built up inside, then the ashes removed for baking and roasting. There will be an area with a grill, and my daughter specifically wanted an area where we can incorporate a wok, both of which would have their own smaller fire areas under them. We will also incorporate a smoker, so smoke from the cob-style oven and under the wok will be directed into the smoker. We’ll just have to make sure we can allow the smoke to escape if we’re cooking, but not smoking anything.
The question is, what will we build all this out of? For the shelter itself, it will likely be a timber frame, and we’ve agreed that a metal roof, with the rafters and any other wood above treated against fire. We plan to incorporate stone a lot – we have so much of it! – but for the cooking area, we will probably hit a salvage yard for bricks. We wouldn’t be able to “harvest” our own stones for that, as what we have is porous and can absorb moisture; it has been known to explode when exposed to heat. It would be great to find fire bricks from a salvage yard, too, but that’s something I’d consider worth buying new. The cooking area would also basically make up one wall, but for the other sides, we’re thinking to have at least half-walls. Likely of stone – again, because we have so much of it!
We’ll need a lot of mortar.
For the top half of the walls, I’d like to have the option of switching between screens in the summer, and wall panels in the winter.
Along with the cooking area, we will have another wall with a work table from end to end. That can be mobile, along with any seating. We’re also going to include a sort of cut-out corner for an open fire pit, too. Something we can sit around and have a nice, sheltered, wiener roast. Our current fire pit is much enjoyed, but over the years, the trees have grown too large, and there are too many branches the sparks could potentially ignite. Winds from either the northwest or the southeast can be quite a problem, too. For that area, we will likely build a gazebo shelter that we can use for things like hanging garlic, or laying out potatoes to cure, and not have to worry about it getting rained on. We’ve used our 10×10 market tents for that, but we want a permanent structure.
Somewhere around the outdoor kitchen, my younger daughter also wants to built a forge for the blacksmithing she wants to do. We found some of my late fathers old blacksmithing tools while cleaning up around the pump shack, but what he used for a forge had been gutted, and no longer had the blower fan that had been in there. Who knows, though; perhaps my daughter can still find a way to use that old thing!
So we were able to hash out some plans and ideas. My daughter is now doing more research on blacksmithing and building a forge, while I’ve been doing more research on building a timber frame shelter, and different ideas for the cooking area. There are actually a few multi-function designs out there – some even incorporating a smoker – but of course there are none with all the stuff we have in mind. Which is fine. It’s the different ways to build them that interests me.
When we’ll actually be able to start building this is the question. We’ll need to start accumulating the materials. Once we know what materials we can find or acquire, we’ll be able to make final decisions on the construction and know which materials we’ll have to buy, as well.
I did find an entire playlist on YouTube with a guy building a timber frame “forest kitchen”, by himself. I’ll be spending some time watching those!
That’s one benefit of our long winters, when you can’t do much outside. It’s a good time for making plans and doing research!
As the year winds down, it’s time to review the goals we’d set, see what worked, what didn’t and what we want to accomplish next year.
Among the goals we had:
Starting a cordwood shed to use as an outdoor bathroom, with a composting toilet, to replace the outhouse over a pit.
Well, that didn’t happen. Which is turned out to not necessarily be a bad thing.
The location we want to build it is in that open space behind the compost ring. One of the things I did this past summer was go through the spruce grove and mark most of the dead spruce trees I found. I marked almost 2 dozen, and there were several others I didn’t bother marking, or couldn’t get at. These were trees that were intended to be used for the cordwood walls, however priorities have changed. They will now be used to build high raised garden beds. Right now, the space we want to build in is going to be needed to drag logs out of the spruce grove. Thanks to my mother, we now have a wood chipper that we can use to break down the branches, so we’re not adding to all the branch piles, and will have plenty of wood chips for mulch.
Until we can build the outdoor bathroom, we do still need something to use the next time we have plumbing problems, so the inside of the old outhouse was fixed up and made pretty (the photo here is from before it was finished). A goal for 2022 is to remove the old, moss covered shingles, extend the roof to create an overhang above the door, re-shingle it (or use some of the left over bits of metal roofing we still have in the barn), and do any repairs on the outside before giving it all a final paint job.
We did find that a groundhog had got into the pit and dug a den under the floorboards somewhere. Sadly, if we get an average amount of snow, this will likely result in a drowned groundhog. Our first two springs here, we found that snow melt would form a large puddle in front of the outhouse, and I could see in the hole under the door, which is now fixed, that the pit filled completely with water. There is nothing we can do about this. Hopefully, the groundhog will wake up early enough and leave the den before this is an issue.
Another of our goals is to have the branch piles chipped. While we now have this awesome new wood chipper, which can chip branches up to 3 inches thick, it is very slow going. The branches have to be trimmed of any sticky-outy bits, and be straight, or it won’t go through. For the sake of efficiency, it will be better to hire the tree guys and their massive chipper. When we got their estimate, they figured it would take 6 hours to chip all our wood piles. For our budget, I’m hoping that we can have them come out for three hours in the spring, to get at least the big pile in the outer yard done, and maybe the little ones in the maple grove. Then we can see about hiring them again, maybe in the fall, to do the remaining big piles. With the new wood chipper, we should at least not be adding more to the branch piles, as we clear dead trees out of the spruce grove!
Another goal that we once again failed to meet, was hiring someone to haul the junk pile away to the landfill. This irritates me, because that pile is getting so large, and we are getting to a point where we need to start cleaning up on that side of the chain link fence. If our budget allows, I’m hoping to at least have smaller loads removed, as we can afford it. The name I have for a guy that hauls junk uses a pick up truck, so if we can get him to come by a few times throughout the year, even that would be a help.
Our gardening goals were mostly met, as far as drought conditions allowed. We used poplars we’d cleared out of parts of the spruce grove to build trellises, and those will be used for another year. We planted in areas far from the house, partly to prepare the soil for permanent plantings. The corn and sunflowers were potentially there to provide privacy screens, too, but the drought and poor soil conditions prevented that. Having to use 300 feet of garden hose to water things, and still just barely being able to reach some corners, during a drought and heat waves, was something we could have done without! Add in damage from deer and groundhogs, and it’s a miracle we had as much produce as we did.
For 2022, our garden plans will continue, and this year we will start with the permanent plantings. We are pouring over websites and looking over what bushes we will be planting in those far flung areas. In one section, we will be closing off a gap in the hedge along the north fence line that the deer go through. My mother had been planting lilacs along this fence, but we are looking to plant berry producing shrubs and bushes, instead. We will also be planting them along the east side, both to help keep deer out and to create a privacy screen. We still need to make sure we can access the east fence line, and there has to be a lane kept open, over where the telephone wires are buried, so we will use other methods to close that off to the deer. We’ll have a better idea of what we can buy in January, when many of the nurseries will have their new inventory available. We might be going with sea buckthorn, if the other varieties we were looking at don’t come back into stock.
Other things we intend to order for 2022 are raspberry canes and, if all goes well, Korean Pine. These require shade for their first 5 years, so they will be planted just north of the spruce grove. If budget allows, we’d like to get new Saskatoon bushes, too.
We will have to take out more of the crab apple trees, to remove diseased trees. There are two trees that produce the best apples. If I can protect those, I will be happy. However, we will also be getting other types of fruit trees including, hopefully, a hardier variety of mulberry tree to replace the one that we bought last year, that got killed off by that one cold night that also killed off all the flowers that would have given us fruit and berries this past year. I’m not sure how many we will be able to squeeze out of our budget this year, but the more fruit trees we get, the better, as they can take many years before producing fruit. Berry bushes are also high on our list, as they will start producing much faster.
This past year, we expanded our garden plots significantly, but with our long term goal of growing as much of our own food as possible, we will need to continue to expand and prepare new ground. Now that we have a working chain saw, we’ll be able to clear dead trees out of the spruce grove and clean that up faster. Many of these dead trees appear to have no rot in them yet, and we plan to turn many stumps into benches and tables. We will also need to clear out the fallen rotten trees, and other fire hazards. Once things are cleared out, we will be planting more spruces in the spruce grove, as well as fruit and berry trees that require more protection from the elements. We’re also looking at getting some Rugosa roses, though they will likely be used more as a deer barrier!
Where the trellises are now will eventually be converted to our food forest, except for the lane that needs to be kept open over the buried phone line, but we will use them where they are for one more year. We ordered quite a lot of seeds already, from Vesey’s (including replacement seeds) and Baker Creek again, plus two orders from Heritage Harvest, which is a new company for us this year. The only seeds we’ve ordered that are still en route are the kulli corn. The only other seeds I still plan to buy are peas, but I will pick those up from a local store when they come available, rather than ordering them in. We will also be making use of seeds from our inventory left over from last year. Which means we will need to build more trellises, once we decide where, because we’ll have quite a few vining plants, and there’s only so much we can plant along the chain link fence. ;-)
Along with the saplings, canes and root stock we plan to order, we will be ordering potatoes and sunchokes. This time, we will not try to grow potatoes in bags, but will use the Ruth Stout method again, as part of preparing new areas for either more garden plots, or permanent plantings, the following year.
At this point, we have three low raised bed boxes built, and one high raised bed. Next year, we will continue to use the current beds in the main garden area. The goal is to cut the dead spruce trees to size so that, after things are harvested in the fall, the remaining beds will be converted to high raised beds before next winter. With how much watering we had to do during the drought, filling the beds hügelkultur style will be an important part in moisture retention. Even under normal conditions, high raised beds are notorious for drying out too quickly, but with how we fill them, coupled with the judicious use of mulch, we should be able to prevent that from being a problem.
We will also be making new beds for corn and the many types of squash we have for this coming year, but those will be in areas that will eventually have trees planted in them. Ultimately, we will be building accessible high raised beds in the outer yard to the south of the house, where they will get more sunlight. Eventually, we intend to build a greenhouse or polytunnel out that way, too. It’s not something we’ll be able to start building in 2022, but we should be able to start preparing where they will eventually go. The renter plans to build new fences next year (maintaining the fences was part of the deal they’d originally made with my late father), since their electric fence has been not working as well as intended. I hope to talk to them again about putting a new fence line across the old hay yard, which will be much shorter (therefore, cheaper) than rebuilding the existing fence, but also takes away an area of pasture. We would need a gate in there, though, so that we can eventually haul away those old vehicles to the scrap yard. As that would not be something they’d normally include, I’d be offering to pay for the gate portion. If they are willing to do the new, shorter fence line through the old hay yard, we will be able to get rid of some old, messed up fences and a shed that looks ready to collapse pretty soon. Then we can start building new garden beds out that way. This is also the general area where we want to build the outdoor kitchen, as well as planting a wind break. None of which are worth starting, while there is a chance the renter’s cows can get through. There are also old, collapsing fences around the inner yard we want to take out completely, rather than repair or replace, but again, it can’t be done until the outer yard is fenced in. Long term, though, we won’t have an inner and outer yard anymore, but just one really big yard.
Which means that, on top of continuing our work in the inner yard and garden, we need to get more work done on cleaning up the outer yard. There’s a limit to what we can do, without heavy equipment, but we can at least get a start on it. That was something we should have worked on this past year, but accomplished very little. Hopefully, this coming year will not have the drought and heat waves that made heavy manual labour a very bad idea!
With what we’ve learned from the past year, we know that this year, we will need to focus on protecting our plants from deer, groundhogs and racoons. We will also be focusing on permanent plantings that are drought tolerant and can handle poor soil conditions, even with the amendments we’re working on. We are also looking into planting forage trees and fodder well away from the house and gardens, to give wildlife less reason to invade our yards, looking for food.
As we build our raised garden beds, we will also be ensuring they will all be the same size at the top, so that any covers we build can be interchangeable. The low raised beds are boards and are 3′ x 9′. The high raised bed is 4′ x 9′, and we plan to build them all that size. With the thickness of the logs, the actual growing space inside is closer to 3′ x 8′. So if we build covers to fit the low raised beds, they should also fit the high raised beds.
While most of our goals are going to be expanding or continuing previous goals, a new goal I want to add is to have chickens. For our egg needs, we would only need about half a dozen birds. The problem is, we don’t have anything to keep them in. I am wanting chickens to be part of our soil reclamation progress, which means being able to move their coop and enclosure regularly. Buying a new chicken tractor is well beyond our budget, but we don’t have the materials to build one, either, and with the cost of building materials right now, it’s as out of reach as buying a new one. Of the many, many videos I’ve looked at for making quick, easy and inexpensive coops and shelters for chickens, none of them are suitable for our climate. Oh, they could be temporary structures for the summer, and I do plan to build versions of them that will fit over our raised garden beds, but none of them would keep chickens alive during our winters.
That is something I need to work on. I’d love to get able to get chicks this spring, but if we can’t shelter them once they’re big enough to leave a brooder, there’s no point.
So there we have it. We did accomplish some of our goals for 2021, but many of our goals are multi-year things, so it’s more progress than accomplishment.
Now we’ll see how much we manage to get done next year!
Well, here we are, at the end of 2020. This is our 3rd full year, and 4th winter, of living on the farm.
We set up goals to accomplish the task of getting this place cleaned up and fixed up. Of course, goals are always flexible, since life has a way of blowing right through any plans we might make! So it’s good to take a look and see where we stand.
Of course, the first priority was getting the house itself settled. While we did get most of my parents’ belongings stored away, with some of it staying to be used, there are still things that need to get done. They are not a priority, though, so they can wait. I don’t think anyone wants to go into the attic over the old kitchen to clean that up, for example! Some day, we will have to, but it will wait.
After getting a good look (or so we thought!) of what needed to be done outside, we set yearly goals. The first two years were to be focused on cleaning up the inner yard, then moving on to the outer yard in the third year, before finally moving beyond the outer yard, where we could start looking at clearing out the vehicle graveyard and large junk piles.
In the first year, focus was on clearing out the maple grove and the south and west yards, while year two was supposed to focus on clearing out the spruce grove and east yard. The old garden area in the north was basically in limbo until we decided on what we wanted to do for gardening. The big accomplishment there was getting a new push mower that allowed us to actually mow the overgrown old garden that had been badly plowed some time before we moved out here.
Year one went to plan, but year two had other plans for us, as my husband ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks, followed by trips to the city for medical care, and other such things. The weather also did not cooperate, with drought conditions and heat making heavy physical labour outdoors potentially dangerous. So that whole area got pushed back another year, except for one thing. I managed to clear out the old wood pile, uncovering the only good and soft soil in the entire inner yard! We also set aside an area where my mother’s garden used to be for future gardening, covering it with mulch, then using the giant black tarps reclaimed from the old wood pile to cover most to the area over the winter.
Between those two accomplishments, we ended up planting an actual garden this past summer. This was not something we expected to be able to do for some time, but really, if we waited until conditions were just right, nothing would ever get done, so we went for it. In that respect, this past year had us ahead of the game a bit.
Another plan we had for this past year got pretty much zero progress. We wanted to build a cordwood shed to use as an outdoor bathroom. Having what we thought was the septic tank backing up into the basement, and having to use a honey pot until that got cleared up, showed us that we don’t just need a second bathroom. We need a bathroom that does not rely on our septic system. The old outhouse we’ve got here has a growing hole to the pit developing under the door, and we don’t consider it safe to use. We want to move away from having a pit and use a composting toilet, instead. Sure, it means having to empty the contents regularly, but in the long term, it means the shed could someday be used as something else, just by removing the toilet box.
At the very least, I hoped to get an area dug out so we could create a level “foundation” to build on top of, that would allow for drainage while also holding the weight of cordwood and mortar walls.
This past year, we had a wet spring followed by some pretty extreme heat (well… for our area), and the only thing we managed to accomplish to that goal was clear away the last of the little trees that had sprung up by the old wood pile. I think not getting any progress on that is my one real disappointment for the year’s plans gone awry.
At the same time, even with the setbacks of the previous years, there were things that needed to get done in the outer yard. Thanks to my brother, gaping holes in the roof of one the sheds were patched with pieces of metal roofing left over from when the barn and garage were done, years ago. Windows were replaced or fixed. Some trees cleared away from other roofs. These were things that were part of the original plans, so in that respect, they were being done on schedule. The other things that need to be done in the outer yard will be slowly accomplished over the space of years, but some things were just more urgent than others.
The summer heat made working in the spruce grove severely limited. Plus, while we were glad to have an actual garden this past year, tending them did take time away from the goal of clearing out that grove. It is a fire hazard, which increases with every tree that comes down in a storm, or any branches that fall. Plus, we want to take down the dead trees and plant more spruces in the spruce grove!
So that area has been pushed back for yet another year.
Which brings me to our updated plans and goals.
For 2021, we’ll be focusing even more on gardening, having picked up a ridiculous number of seeds, with more things to arrive in the spring, when they can be planted right away. This is going to rather force us to get the spruce grove cleared up faster! Areas of the spruce grove are being taken over by poplars, and these will be perfect to use to build trellises and arbors for the garden. We even plan to build a gate/arbor combination to set up next to the main gate, so people can come in without climbing the locked gate. The taller poplars would probably be useful in building temporary, deer proof fencing to protect our garden, too.
There’s at least one large dead spruce I want to take down. Not starting on the cordwood shed may actually be a plus, since I would be cutting it to (hopefully!) fall in that direction, where there are no other trees for it to fall on top of. With the old chainsaw we have breaking at one of the switches needed to start it, the very first time I tried to use it, we will need to invest in a new one to get the spruce grove cleaned up. There’s only so much that’s reasonable to do with a buck saw! Plus, we have a mulberry tree coming in the spring. It’s a zone 4 tree, so we want to ensure it is growing in a protected area that also gives full sun, and that’s going to be in the spruce grove.
With having varieties of corn and sunflowers that need to be kept away from each other to avoid cross pollination, we’ll be working in areas of the old garden that are well away from the house. All of that will be temporary as, in the long term, we are looking to plant nut trees in there, and move most of the gardening into the outer yard, south of the house. So any gardening we do around there in the upcoming year will mean breaking up the hard, rocky soil and amending it, which will make it better for any future nut trees we plant out there.
One of the goals we had for this past year was to hire the tree company to come out with their massive chipper, and get rid of the piles of wood we’ve got all over. We couldn’t do it this year, but it still needs to be done. It may be worthwhile for us to just buy a chipper instead, though the cost of one that can handle what we’d be putting it through would be considerably more than the cost of hiring this company to come out for 6 hours. From the estimate I got at the time, he figured 6 hours would be enough time for them to do all the piles, too. Hiring someone would be more efficient to get these big piles done. We can invest in a chipper of our own, later on. We will always have branches to clean up and get rid of, so it would be worth it.
So the past year has been an odd mix of goals delayed, while others were accomplished faster than expected. One thing that has been delayed for way too long is getting the junk pile hauled to the dump. This is something we will be hiring people to do, so it basically comes down to whether or not it’s in the budget at any given time. So far, it hasn’t been! It would be fantastic to get rid of that unsightly mess, though.
Aside from time and weather dependent things that will need to get done, like all things garden related, our goals and plans for 2021 have become a lot more loosey-goosey. Timelines have become much more vague, and we’re still at a loss on how to accomplish some vital goals, like replacing the roof.
Still, we’ve managed to accomplish enough in the past year, that we can spend more time building things up, rather than taking things down, in the next year.
Which is as good for the psyche as for anything else!
The Re-Farmer 