This evening, before things started to get dark, I headed outside to do my evening rounds. I remembered to bring a bowl to finally harvest some tiny Orange Currant tomatoes!
I actually dropped quite a few of them that were damaged by frost to the ground. Which means we might have some self seeded tomatoes showing up in this bed next year, which I am okay with. I still managed to get quite a few, plus a couple of Blueberry tomatoes. I even found a Manitoba tomato that was getting ripe, with no cracks in it! All over those, I’m seeing green tomatoes already cracked. The cracked ones I’d brought in before, intending to dehydrate the non-cracked portions, ended up molding almost right away and had to be composted. *sigh*
Once the tomatoes were picked, I checked the beans in the bed beside them and found a few ready to harvest. A couple of the plants have lots of developing beans still, so this will probably not be the last beans we pick from there.
While checking the main garden area, I found myself really impressed by this bolted carrot.
It is HUGE! Those flower clusters are downright massive! We’ve had carrots bolt before. Usually Uzbek Golden carrots. This one is from the Rainbow Mix carrot seeds, and I’m not sure which colour of carrot this is from. When we can finally harvest this bed, we’ll be able to see. I’ll make sure to leave the bolted carrot. If it survives long enough before it gets too cold to develop seeds, I intend to harvest them.
We’ve got at least three more mild nights before temperature drop enough that I would want to cover as much as I can, just in case the actual temperature drops lower than the forecasted temperature – again. Overall, though, we’ve possibly got almost two weeks of fairly mild overnight temperatures.
I’m really hoping for a mild winter overall. My tolerance for our typical prairie winters is getting shorter as I get older! 😄
Last time, I’d gathered bush beans from the ones planted later in the season around the Arikara squash. This time, I harvested beans from the high raised bed. The plants there have considerably more frost damage, and yet are still producing!
Along with the beans, I picked the two Prolific Long Neck summer squash that looked ready.
The girls ended up using this summer squash in their roasted Arikara squash soup, which they tell me turned out very excellent. It included carrots and bell peppers from the garden, too. Not something I can even taste, but that’s okay. I had some of roasted Arikara squash separately, and made sure to taste some on its own, with no seasonings, first.
Definitely something we would be okay growing again. The flavour was mild, and smooth and stringless, with a texture much like mashed potatoes.
The girls also taste tested our first California Bell peppers before adding it to the soup, and they liked it enough that we set aside some seeds, though I still have some in the package. So we now have two varieties of peppers – these and the Sweet Chocolate – that pass the taste test with the family.
Aside from that, today was a home day, though it could have been our first stock up shopping day. My husband’s CPP Disability came in early, as it does when deposit day falls on a Monday. I was feeling well enough for the trip, but rainy days like this make me very sleepy, and my daughter is still fighting her own pain levels. We’ve decided to do the shopping tomorrow, instead.
One thing I started on today was a Christmas garland, crocheting around a purchased bead garland, 6 feet long, with lace weight white crochet thread paired with a strand of silver reflective thread, using a 3.25mm hook. I was working on the second row of the pattern, about 3/4 through, when I spotted an error…
Made about 6 inches from the start of that row.
I’d already found the same error made after about a foot and ripped the stitching back to fix it, but that just isn’t going to work with something closer to three feet. The strand of reflective yarn is quite thin, and I don’t want to end up breaking it or adding too much wear to it. Plus, the sheer length of what I’d have to undo would be difficult to keep from tangling. Just the short amount I’d ripped earlier, kinked into waves from the stitches, kept wanting to tie itself into knots.
So, I’m going to finish the second row and not do the third row I had planned on. On its own like this, the error would not be visible unless someone knew what they were looking for, but would throw the pattern of a third row off completely.
I still can’t believe I did that. The girls are still laughing at the wail of despair I made when I found it and realized where it was.
Ah, well.
I still have a fair bit to do to finish the second row, but I won’t finish it tonight. I’ll just have to make sure to tuck it away somewhere safe from that cats for the night. 😄
My daughter and I headed into town this morning, hoping to get the truck worked on, even though I hadn’t received a message back from the garage with a time. I had my suspicions, but my daughter had something to do in town after, so I knew it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.
Oh, my. I really feel for the owner of the garage.
When we got there, he was outside, on the phone. My daughter stayed outside by the truck while I went into the office and waiting for him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying on the phone, but I could hear his tone, and it was a lot tenser than his usual laid back manner.
When he came to the office door, he was furiously texting while also apologizing. He had meant to text me back with a time, but had never had a chance to look at his schedule to tell me when. He was finally able to set his phone down on a shelf just outside the door, telling me how, after he’d had to go home yesterday, unable to work on our truck, things ended up taking hours longer than it should have. Of course, that absolutely screwed up his schedule completely.
He had just sat down at his desk and started getting his schedule out when his phone started ringing again. From where he’d left it just outside the door! He had to answer it and went outside again to talk. When he came back, he looked absolutely frazzled.
He was, of course, needing to catch up on things, and I could already see his bays were full, so there was no way we’d be getting in anytime soon. He had no openings today and, at best, could squeeze me in between other scheduled jobs. Of course, that would me us waiting in his office, since there’s nowhere else to go in the industrial park his shop is now located in. Alternatively, he had openings tomorrow.
We’ll be back tomorrow morning.
Poor guy. Yes, there was another mechanic, but there are things only the owner can take care of and, when it comes to our truck and needing to figure things out, he had taken that on himself rather than delegating.
That arranged, my daughter and I headed into town. I had forgotten our water bottles to refill, but we’ll be back to do that tomorrow. My daughter ran her errand and we were soon home.
I was feeling really good today – left the walker in the truck and didn’t even need a cane. After we had lunch at home, I headed outside to see what I could get done, as we are expecting rain.
I got the cat beds soaking in the tub finished and set out to drain and, if it doesn’t rain, dry. Floor mats got hosed down, which will need to be done again another time or two. I got the cat cage dismantled and the interlocking mat under it set out for soaking, then hosing down.
With the cat half of the sun room finally empty, I swept as best I could, but the floor washing and window washing will have to wait. Instead, I brought out all the cleaned cat beds and blankets and set them on one side, then brought all the food trays that had been removed and laid them out on the other, along with a water bowl. This way, the cats will at least have someplace warm and dry to hang out in, should the weather get wet. The wind, at least, seems to be dying down.
By the time all that was done, it was time to do the outside cat feeding. The singleton kitten would not let me touch her today, but she kept calling at me. She looks so sad without the little kittens to play with! I’m glad she’s staying close to the house now, though. Hopefully, with all the trays returned to the sun room, she will start hanging out in there more often, and the other cats won’t chase her out.
Before heading in, I did my evening rounds and checked on the garden. I watered the muskmelon, since they are under their own mini greenhouse set up. Then I noticed a strange bit of colour among the yellow leaves of the red noodle beans in the other bed.
There it is. Our single, sad, floppy little red noodle bean! I couldn’t see any others. Which I found funny because the same thing happened the first time we tried growing this variety during what turned out to be a drought year. We got just one sad little bean that year, too.
I would really like to successfully grow this variety, but I think I’ll wait a year or two before I try again.
I was still able to get a little harvest for today, though.
I got a handful of beans from the ones planted later in the season, with the Arikara squash. My pain levels started to kick in, so I asked a daughter to make supper, and I now have those beans on my cooling plate as I write this. I also grabbed a few of the Blueberry Tomatoes for the girls.
Sept. 23, and we still have a few things we’ll be able to harvest. If the long range forecast is at all accurate, we will have no danger of frost at all for at least the next 10 days.
I’m appreciating every frost free day we’re getting as a gift right now!
I’m glad I was able to get outside this morning. It started raining in the afternoon and is expected to continue through to about 3am.
Last night, we dropped to about 5 or 6C/41 or 43F, depending on which app I check. Tonight, it’s supposed to drop to 9 or 11C/48 or52F, depending on where I look, so no worries of frost. The next night, however, is expected to drop to 3 or 4C/37 or 39F Definitely enough to start covering things, even if we don’t get frost.
Some things can’t be covered, though. Things like this Butterneck squash.
These are the two largest ones. In the second photo, you can just see a bit of wind damage. The Black Russian sunflowers on this side are shorter than the Mammoth ones, and the high winds have been pushing them all over the place. I’ve had to untangle both varieties of sunflowers from each other. In this corner, a couple of shorter sunflowers had gotten tangled with the squash vines climbing the fence. One of them ended up right against that second developing squash. The stalks of sunflowers are quite course and the winds pushing them around damaged the squash’ skin like sandpaper.
I know these are unlikely to survive an actual frost. Will they survive temperatures just above that? Hard to say. The colder temperature and shorter daylight hours also mean they are growing more slowly, so they will take more time to mature even without the colder temperatures.
These squash are from the second sowing of seed starts I did after discovering all the squash and melon seedlings were destroyed overnight, so these are also already quite late. One of the other things from the second sowing that got transplanted is a Black Futsu squash. When I bought some butternut transplants and the plants seemed to be growing all right after being transplanted, but they are barely even blooming now. The winter squash in that area that is growing and actually has female flowers and developing melons are the Black Futsu. They look like little green golf balls right now, and one of the earlier ones seems to have disappeared. So we won’t be getting any butternut squash from from the purchased transplants at all.
I headed out again not long ago to do the evening cat feeding, but it was raining pretty hard, so I didn’t check any of the garden beds. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ve lost more cats. Neither my daughters nor I have seen Bug for a while now. My precious little Bug is missing! I was never even able to get her to accept pets from me again, other than sneaking them while she was eating.
We need to do another head out in the morning. That’s when most of them show up.
I’m so glad we got Slick’s orphans to the rescue when we did. I got a quick update on them. They are allowing themselves to be held, and the one that was the most alarmed and scared and fighting us off? That was the first one to start purring!
Well, I’m certainly glad I was able to cover those melons yesterday. According to the weather app on my phone, we dropped to 4C/39F last night. No frost, but still cold enough to potentially cause problems for heat lovers like melons.
When I headed out to check the garden beds this morning, I made sure to fill the slow watering jugs by the melons. Hopefully, that will help give them the heat and moisture they need for those few little melons to develop.
What can I say. I’m an optomist.
Nothing seemed to be damaged by the cold night, thankfully. The Spring Blush peas are completely dried out, so I collected the pods. They’re not in a bowl in the cat free zone, waiting to be put into a jar or something. Then I completely forgot about them. 😄
When I headed out again this evening, I took care of a few things. The first was to bring in the onions, which have had enough time to cure.
They all got their stems trimmed off and the dirt on them gently removed. I also trimmed the Giganthemum poppy pods off their stalks and brought those in. In the next image, you can see what seeds we got (some of the pods were empty), in an amber glass jar. The plan it to sow those in the fall, just before the ground freezes. Between these and the bread seed poppy seeds we have, I am hoping to finally grow enough poppies to have seeds for baking with as well as for sowing the next year. I have a couple of spots in mind to sow the different varieties, so they don’t cross pollinate.
I also finally harvested our single Arikara squash.
The first photo is to give a perspective of how big it is, in the wheelbarrow. As it got bigger, I set it on a brick, then later added a board, so keep it off the damp ground. The rough surface you can see is what was face down on the board. It was a bit damp so, when I set it on the curing frame (over the cross piece, to support the weight), I made sure the damp part was facing up.
This, I expect, will be the only winter squash we will get this year, and I’m glad we finally got an Arikara squash, since I specifically want to save the seeds from this rare variety. There’s no chance of cross pollination since there were no other winter squash around to cross pollinate with.
We do have the winter squash on the chain link fence, and we do have a few Butterneck squash developing. Some are large enough now that I could be harvesting them as a summer squash. I don’t expect that they will have a chance to reach full maturity, but even young winter squash can be eaten.
According to the weather app on my desktop, we dropped to 6C/43F last night, not 4C/39F. Tonight might be just as chilly as last night, but shouldn’t be any colder. By Tuesday night, though, both apps are saying we will be dropping to 3C/37F overnight. At that point, I might want to add jugs of hot water under the plastic with the melons, and drape frost cloths over the peppers and eggplant. After that, we’re expected to warm up again for a while.
I definitely need to remember to close my window for the night. It’s only open a few inches, and I was cozy under my covers, but I woke to find 6 cats plastered against me, 4 around my face and shoulders, trying to keep warm! 😄🤣
I am so not looking forward to winter. My tolerance for cold, and winter in general, has really dropped a lot in the last few years! Medical emergencies and vehicle breakdowns have contributed significantly to that. 😄
Today, I went through my supplies to figure out what I could use to create a makeshift greenhouse over the melons. It was a cooler day today, and some areas of the province – not ours – are getting frost warnings. Our local forecast for overnight lows are not that far, but last year we frequently had nights colder than predicted, rather than warmer, which caused a fair amount of damage.
Some things, there isn’t much we can do to protect them. The winter squash on the chain link fence for example, share the bed with sunflowers that are quite a bit taller, and there’s no real way to cover them. In theory the tomato bed, which has the box frame around it, could be covered, if I had anything large enough to go over the vertical support stakes as well. I do not.
The peppers, eggplant and Chocolate Stripe tomatoes could be rather easily covered, if necessary, at least. The summer squash, growing vertically, could also be potentially covered if we had anything large enough. Again, we do not.
The melons, however, can be done. I had a couple of options and this is what I ended up with.
I ended up using two clear shower curtains. Must stronger than the other plastic I had. I had to push the hoops and vertical stakes down quite a bit and, at the end over the very tiny surviving transplant from our own seeds, I made the hoop shorter by one rod. Just pushing the hoops in took a lot more effort than expected, as I started hitting rocks. One of them had to be pulled up and moved several times before I had to be satisfied with the height it was, because there was no getting them any lower, and they weren’t at a location where I could simply remove one of the rods.
I set the shower curtains with the grommets at the ends where I could weave ground staples through the holes to gather the excess and secure it to the ground, then weighting them down. Of course, the wind started picking up, trying to blow things away while I worked, but I made sure the overlap was facing a direction where it was less likely to be picked up by the wind. I was able to use clips from the hoop kit to secure the plastic in key areas, though the thicker plastic made that more difficult. Hopefully, not less secure.
Then I put together more rods to make a couple of hoops to go on the outside of the plastic, further securing it. Wind will still be an issue, but hopefully not by much.
It started to rain while I was working on this. We barely hit 13C/55F today, so it was pretty chilly!
One of the sheets of plastic can’t quite reach the ground near the south end. It’s still enough to keep the heat in, and still allow some air circulation. I should be able to raise the sides on hotter days, or to be able to water them. I even tested that out without even having to raise them much at all, and was able to fill the upside down gallon water bottles I’ve got in between the plants for slower, deeper watering.
Hopefully, this will work out. As we build the walls around these beds, I will be making wire mesh covers for them that will be easier to cover with insect netting or plastic. This will do for now, as least.
Hopefully, this will be enough to protect the melons and give them the heat they needs. The developing melons are about the size of a golf ball, with some slightly bigger. It’s highly unlikely they will have time to reach full maturity, but I at least want to give them a chance!
I had intended to get the riding mower out and work on the lawn but, even with just a light rain, the grass was just too wet. So I started working on the cat stuff that had been soaking in the old bath tub. I took everything out, dividing them into piles of stuff that can be hung on the clothes line, and stuff that can’t. I started washing fleece cat blanket, using the wheelbarrow as a tub, only for the rain to start up again. So I left it to soak – there’s a lot worked into the fabric I will not be able to work loose, but the soaking will help – and headed back inside.
Unfortunately, even this little bit of manual labour is messing with me and the pain is returning, even with T3s. I will still be able to go out and do the evening cat feeding, but I won’t be able to help my daughter, who is currently starting to break down the fallen tree. For now, she’s just removing branches and hauling them away, using non-power tools. The downed tree is completely blocking the open lane between the spruce grove and the crab apple trees, so we really need to get that cleaned up.
It isn’t a lot, but it felt good to at least get this project done. We’ll just need to make sure it holds against the winds!
Today, the girls and I headed into the city. Something we decided on later last night. The amazing thing is that my older daughter came along, too. Not for any medical appointments or another ER trip. Just because she wanted to get out of the house, and actually felt well enough to do it!
After the last few years of barely being able to get outside the house, this is HUGE!
As for me, I took the last of my generic Percocet and almost immediately got hit with dizziness. At that time, I was able to just go back to bed, though, so it didn’t mess things up for me too much.
Potato Beetle took his turn on my leaning sheep. Which I seem to have lost entirely. After washing it, I had found it worked well as support under my knees so I could lie on my back, so I hadn’t put it back in the shelf that is my “headboard”. The cats have all claimed it at one point or another! It is now a cat bed.
*sigh*
We didn’t head out until about 11 and as I was on the way to the truck, I just had to stop and take some photos.
There were a couple of very sleepy bees on the sunflowers! It was a nice warm day by mid afternoon, but the morning was still cool enough that the bees were sluggish.
Our destination in the city was a Medigas. My husband had ordered new nasal “pillows” that he has instead of a CPAP mask. The pressure he needs on his CPAP is so high, the type of mask that covers the nose and mouth leaks air unless it’s tightened so much, he actually developed lesions. He’s gone through various styles of nasal prongs over the years, as designs changed and older ones were no longer being made. He isn’t able to order from his usual source in the US, though. For some reason, they no longer accept his prescription that’s required to buy replacements. So he had to buy from Medigas.
He got two nasal prongs, and it cost $110.
When he was able to buy them from the US supplier, he got a package with 6 different sizes for maybe Cdn$30.
He’ll be able to submit his receipt to his insurance company to be reimbursed for most of that, but the cost of CPAP supplies from Canadian sources is just insane and always has been.
By the time we got to the Medigas, we’d been on the road for over an hour and I was starting to hurt. My alarm for my afternoon dose of painkillers was about to go off after we got the nasal prongs, so I made sure to take the T3s I had with me before we made our next stop. I had hoped to take advantage of being in the city to stop at the Walmart to do a bit of shopping, but wasn’t up to it. The Medigas is on the same highway that we do our non-Costco stock up shopping on, and the international grocery store was on the way home, so we stopped there to get supper for when we got home. I picked a couple of things for my husband and I while the girls remembered they were out of oat milk and went to get some. They ended up coming back with a few other things as well, then went looking for something they wanted for their own supper – while I had to sit down. The T3s never really seemed to kick in.
In the end, the girls were sweethearts and paid for everything.
One thing I meant to get on the way out of the city was gas. Prices had gone up to $1.799/L, even in the city. On the way to Medigas I spotted a place that was $1.639 and on the same side of the highway we were on, so I got gas there. It was pre-pay only, so I went in to pay for $40 while my daughter took care of the pump. It turned out to be just enough to fill the tank from about 3/4s, which was nice.
After we picked stuff up at the grocery store, I had to get my younger daughter to take over driving. There was no dizziness at all with the T3s, but they don’t work as well. Frustrating.
Once we got home and my daughters brought things inside, my younger daughter took care of feeding the outside cats, before we had our food and relaxed a bit. I felt well enough later to head outside and into the garden to do some harvesting.
These are the California Wonder bell peppers, which are starting to turn colour. The Sweet Chocolate peppers are also starting to ripen. We won’t be getting a lot of peppers, but we’ll at least have a few! Since these have the tomato cages protecting them, if things get chilly overnight, they can be easily covered with some fabric we have for frost cloth.
What amazes me is just how many bush beans I was able to harvest! Most of them still from the high raised bed, that were planted earlier in the season.
The yellow beans on top are from the later planted ones in the Arikara Squash bed. There are a couple of Blueberry tomatoes, and a whole bunch of Orange Currant tomatoes. Some of them are fully red, like Spoon tomatoes, instead of orange. I also grabbed a couple of yellow zucchini.
I think we have enough bush beans to actually be worth blanching and freezing in a medium sized freezer bag – and there are still developing beans we’ll be able to continue harvesting!
I am so grateful for the mild weather we are having so far. The forecast has changed again, of course, and now it’s looking like we won’t be hitting below 6C/43F for a couple of weeks, and will mostly be closer to 10C/50F. Not that I trust long range forecasts, but it does give something to plan on.
Tomorrow, we have no plans to go out anywhere. If we hadn’t gone in today to get my husband’s nasal prongs, it would have had to wait until Monday, and I didn’t want to do that to him. He really needed replacements, long ago. My younger daughter has been wanting to work on breaking down that fallen tree for a while now, but we have either not been home long enough, or it’s been too windy and rainy.
At some point, we’re going to need to get a gas powered chainsaw. There’s only so far we can get on extension cords, and battery powered anything won’t last long enough to finish the jobs we need to do. Our baby chainsaw (electric pruner) has two batteries and my brother’s weed trimmer has three, and none of them recharge fast enough to be able to cycle through them and finish most jobs.
Anyhow.
I’m just thankful to be able to get as much done as we have been, with all the crazy medical stuff going on.
On the right and on the board in the middle are the Red Wethersfield onions that were interplanted with the bush beans in the high raised bed. The largest ones were all on the south end of the bed. The others were probably too overshadowed by the bush bean leaves to get as big.
The ones on the right are the Red Long of Tropea, which were interplanted with the caraway and along the west side of the bed with the (already harvested) turnips. On the other side of that bed, by the Daikon radish are the Red Beard bunching onions, which are looking very tall and strong.
I forgot to look for the onions that were planted near the celery, Those aren’t even visible anymore. Out of sight, out of mind!
That one tomato is a Chocolate Stripe tomato that I found fallen on the ground.
While checking other beds, I noticed some red tomatoes.
The little ones are supposed to be Blueberry tomatoes. 😄 The other, larger ones are Manitoba tomatoes. Then there’s that Chocolate Stripe tomato off to one side. They are now all set aside in the cat free zone to continue to ripen.
After harvesting the onions and the tomatoes, I checked on the summer squash and found a bit of wind damage. These are being grown vertically, but some did not get tied off high enough, yet, and one had been blown over, bending at the highest tie. So I spent a while going through all of them and securing them to their vertical posts with garden wire.
It isn’t a lot, but it felt good to be able to do at least that much in the garden!
After a draining morning, I lay down after taking my pain killers to wait for it to pass.
It didn’t, but it at least got less severe.
Somewhere past 3:00, I headed back outside with my walker. I fed the outside cats, then say with the fishing rod toy to keep Sweetie busy so the littles had a chance to eat. We have storm warnings for tonight (as I started this, I could hear thunder in the distance!), so I took the bigger carrier we had set up for the kittens to explore and put it inside the catio, setting the door mostly closed. Then I headed to the garden.
One thing I noticed over the past while is that some of the winter squash on the chain link fence are producing more female flowers! I was even able to hand pollinate a few this morning.
Most of them are these Butterneck squash. There’s at least one that looks like it’s going to wither away, but the ones I got pictures of all look pretty darn good. I also spotted a new Black Futsu female flower that was open and hand pollinated it. Why I bother, I don’t know. It’s Sept. 6 today. There is basically no season left for them to mature! Still, I want to give them all the chance they can. It should be interesting to see how big they get before it gets too cold.
We will, however, have one winter squash this year, at least.
The outer shell of the Arikara squash is getting pretty hard. I should be able to cut it and set it to cure fairly soon. All the other squash that started on this plant have died off, almost as if it pruned itself.
The yellow bush beans around the Arikara squash are producing quite nicely, and I had plenty to pick from a relatively few number of plants. I also found a single red Manitoba tomato, hiding under some leaves that I picked. Then I went to the high raised bed and picked the bush beans there…
… after I picked the two Chocolate Stripes tomatoes that were ready.
In the above photo, all the beans to the left of the tomatoes are from the later planted beans by the Arikara squash. Everything to the right of the tomatoes are from the high raised bed. The yellow beans in that bed seem to have had a second life and are suddenly producing quite a lot, again. There’s only a couple of green bean plants, and they are not at all productive.
I didn’t keep this. I got a bowl for it all, then wheeled over to my brother and SIL’s caravan and offered it to them. They were quite happy to accept. After my SIL transferred them to their own container and brought back my bowl, we were able to stay outside and chat – I just sat on my walker rather than try to climb up into the caravan. They have stairs with a hand rail now, but they came outside rather than have me hobble my way in.
Unlike my mother, with her snarky comments about the little tomatoes I brought her, it was nice when my brother and SIL quite appreciated the beans and tomatoes I brought for them! They have been growing some things on their balcony, but no beans. My SIL is thinking that, next year, she’ll try to grow enough tomatoes to do some canning. This year, they have cucumbers and cucamelons that have done quite well!
We got all caught up with the birthday visit with my mother this morning. My brother hadn’t had a chance to go into detail with my SIL yet. My mother was so all over the place, it took both of us to describe things and figure out what she was saying. Part of the challenge is that her sense of time is completely gone. There was something she’d said that my brother thought had happened recently, but I’d caught her mentioned the town she used to live in, which means it could have happened several years ago. In some things, we had to mash together things, my sister had told me my mother had said to her, compared to what my mother had told me, compared to what my mother had told my brother, and work out what was actually intended. It’s like putting together a puzzle, but half the pieces are still missing, while pieces from another puzzle show up randomly, too.
Still, we do the best we can.
I can hear that the rain has started. My SIL was very happy to have gotten the mowing done!
It would be really awesome if the weather holds long enough for us to actually get more winter squash.
After yesterday’s trip to the ER, my daughters have been absolutely brutal about me not doing anything.
Which was probably a good idea. I have been feeling really good today, which means I probably would have overdone it, if they hadn’t!
My younger daughter has been focusing on the outside stuff and taking over in the garden. She’s been doing the morning cat feeding and this morning she did a deep watering of the garden beds – something that probably won’t be needed tomorrow, as there are thunderstorms in the forecast. Then she went out again to dig up all of the potatoes. Which turned out to be a harder job than it should have been. She couldn’t find where I’d left the garden fork, which still needed to have its broken handle replaced, so she was using a spade. When I came out to see how she was, she’d stopped for a break in the shade, having brought my walker out to use.
She found that thing so handy, she’s now considering buying one for herself!
When I found out about the lack of garden fork, I got the new handle I bought, a screwdriver and the garden fork over. Unfortunately, the Canadian Tire handle turns out to be smaller than the handle on the fork, so she wasn’t able to get it all the way on. We’ll need to reduce the circumference of the handle by a small amount – small enough that just some sand paper would do the job – to get it all the way on. So she had to finish using the spade.
Most of the Yukon Gold got rinsed off with a hose then brought inside. The first photo above is after her sister used some of it for supper. The second image is the last of the Yukon Gold with all of the Viking potatoes, curing on the screen.
I’m not too concerned about curing them fully. There aren’t a lot of them and they will likely be finished off rather quickly, much like the cabbage harvested earlier are being used up now.
In the future, we would need to plant a LOT more to have enough to last us the winter and, hopefully, have seed potatoes for the next year.
My daughter removed the garlic from the screen to make room for the potatoes, and then she trimmed the roots and dirt off the garlic, getting them ready to bring indoors.
We’ll be sure to selected the ones with the largest cloves to plant in October. We will have plenty to choose from. We’ve got the largest garlic we’ve grown yet, this year!
I joined my daughter again shortly before she finished with the garlic, so we were able to walk around a bit. I did harvest some bush beans planted around the Arikara squash, while she looked for any ripe Orange Currant tomatoes. Later on, I also harvested the one Prolific Long Neck squash that was large enough to make it worth picking.
While walking around, I couldn’t help but notice this.
The tree removal company has not been able to come out with their stump grinder, with the rain we had last week. From the looks of it, we’ll be getting thunderstorms and severe weather through Monday and Tuesday.
Which means the elm has had time to start trying to grow back already.
Elm is very difficult to get rid of, which is one of the reasons why my brother is willing to pay for stump grinding.
So the girls have been wonderful about getting things done that I would normally be working on, which is appreciated. Even feeling as good as I did, and as lovely it was to walk around the yard to get some fresh air and sunshine. it wasn’t all that long before I started feeling warning signs that I needed to get back inside to sit down. I still managed to get a few easy things done, though I had to sneak that in after my daughter went inside with the garlic. 😄
