growing food

Morning in the garden, afternoon kitties, and not a good day

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I’m having a rather bad day today – and I don’t know why!

But first, the good stuff.

In the first photo above, you can see our growing pumpkin now has a sling to support it on the trellis. Or, more accurately, to take the weight off the plastic trellis netting so it won’t snap. The weight is now being held by the vertical supports for the permanent trellis, plus I wrapped garden twist ties around the strand of the netting holding the most weight, to strengthen it and put some of that weight onto the horizontal support bar above.

The next picture is of the Hedou Tiny Bok Choy seeds I gathered. I keep getting that name wrong, but I looked up the old post from when I got them as free seeds with an order from Baker Creek, back in 2022, for our 2023 garden.

The seeds in the container are actually from today’s pods I gathered, plus some I gathered earlier, as the pods dried out earlier. We will have plenty of seeds to plant this fall, for next year.

The funny thing is, we’ve never actually grown any of this variety of bok choy. The first year I tried them, they were in the bed by the chain link fence, before we know how destructive those Chinese elm seeds were. The entire bed was completely choked out. Yet, a couple of little bok choy survived and promptly bolted. All of two plants. I left them be and collected the seeds. They got planted last fall, in the “greens” mix of seeds planted in the old kitchen garden.

The problem was, the mix was scatter planted and things were pretty crowded out. I never saw the bok choy until the bolted – again, just a couple of plants – sending their flower stalks up through the mass of kohlrabi leaves. They were able to get much bigger, even being crowded out as they were, and I had a lot more pods to collect once they dried up. The pods were so dry, they started snapping open in my fingers as I tried to collect them. Most of the seeds ended up in my hand, but I’m sure a few ended up on the soil. I finally broke off the flower stalk lower down and brought the whole thing inside. For now, the seeds are in the cooler living room, with the container open to make sure they are completely dry.

When I do the winter sowing this fall, it will be a lot more organizes and planned, know that I know how the different things worked out. These tiny bok choi will be planted where they won’t be hidden or crowded out by other plants, and with protection from cats. Hopefully, next year, we’ll actually be able to harvest some and find out what they taste like!

There might still be some stalks of pods hidden under the kohlrabi leaves, but I definitely got most of them. While looking around, I did a bit of weeding and suddenly realized I was looking at a whole lot of new sprouts that were NOT weeds.

We left more spinach to go to seed than we need, and some of them got so leggy and spread out when they bolted, I pulled them like weeds, and just dropped them as mulch. Well, it looks like those seeds continued to develop, even after the plants were pulled!

We’ll be having an unintended fall spinach crop!

I was really struggling this morning, though. I couldn’t sleep for some reason, and after I did finally sleep, I woke up (was awakened) with this simmering undertone of anger, and it just hasn’t gone away. It didn’t get better after I had breakfast, so I tried for a nap.

It didn’t get better after a nap.

So I’ve asked the girls to take over on various things, but the outside jobs I could have done today, aren’t getting done. My head space is so messed up right now, I can’t even think of which project I would be working on. On top of it all, even though I just bought more kibble during the Walmart trip, it was just one 9kg bag for the inside cats, and another for the outside cats, and we’re already running low. I need to go to the feed store and pick up a couple more 40 pound bags, if I want to last until the first stock up trip at the end of August. I’m in no shape to do it today, but I will have to do it tomorrow.

Weather forecast is now saying we’re going to have more rain tomorrow morning. Maybe. The weather app on my phone was saying thunderstorms starting in the wee hours and ending by late morning. Now, it says no rain at all. The app on my desktop says we’ll get a bit of rain in the late morning, then again in the evening. We’re also supposed to get a lot hotter. It’s going to be topsy turvy temperatures for the next while. Last night, the forecasted low was 10C/50F. We ended up dropping to 8C/46F, instead. I actually got cold last night, and when I did my rounds, I wore a sweater for the first time in months. While not cold enough to need to cover things, anything below 10C/50F is not good for our garden, when everything is so far behind.

Anyhow.

I did head out to do the evening cat feeding earlier than usual as I wanted to make sure the littles hiding under the counter shelf could have a chance to eat without the bigger cats pushing them around. I’ve only seen one or two at a time, so I still don’t know how many are under there. For all I know, one of the moms has moved some of them.

After putting the food out, I did a head count of adult cats.

Five.

Yup. Just five! Not twenty five or thirty five. Just five

Of course, there were a lot more in the morning, but I haven’t been able to do a head count. They move around too much.

I did get a couple of pictures this afternoon, though.

Eyelet couldn’t hear the sound of the food being added to the trays and stayed in his comfy bed, making it easy to get his picture. Syndol REALLY wanted me to be paying attention to him instead of Eyelet, though!

As I write this, I have the critter cam live feed up. I can see one little kitten – the one I found in the garage, and later rescued from following other cats around the yard – running around. I saw a skunk earlier and my husband went to try and check it out, but it went under the counter shelf, instead.

Not as fast as usual, though! It would have come face first with however many kittens are under there.

They seem to have made peace, though, as the skunk’s tail is no longer visible, and he’s all the way under.

*sigh*

I’ve accomplished pretty much nothing today, and I feel like I got hit by a truck. Not pain wise. That’s been so much better since I started the anti-inflammatories. Some of it is just a general malaise. My chronic cough hasn’t been very frequent for some time, but today it’s hitting me again. I’m not coughing a lot, but when I do, it’s bad enough that my old daughter was calling down from upstairs, asking if I was okay – and she was wearing headphones while she worked! My cough is like my throat is being torn up. I spent more than 10 years in two provinces going to different specialists to find the cause of my cough, and none was found, and I finally gave up. Nothing drives a doctor more insane than being a short, fat woman that every test shows as being extremely healthy, other than physical damage, like the OA and bone spurs. Aside from not having the laundry list of fat-people ailments they think I should have, they can’t find the cause of my respiratory issues. After test after normal test, they start looking at me sideways, and thinking I’m making it up. With my new doctor, I haven’t even brought it up. She knows it’s an issue, and it’s all in my file, but I see no point in asking for more tests again. I just live with it.

Still, it’s not my cough that’s causing me issues today. I know part of it is the cats and their destructiveness, which is what woke me up this morning. We just have too many cats in the house, and chances of adoption these days has basically dropped from slim to none. I don’t blame the Cat Lady for getting out of rescue, that’s for sure.

I think that might have something to do with that underlying anger I’m feeling today. I think maybe it’s just caught up to me. We do the best we can, but there are limits, and we’ve passed ours, long ago. I can’t even reach out to the stray and feral rescue group I’ve been following; people are very quick to make assumptions and get nasty. You’d think rescues would be a whole lot of people actually interested in rescuing cats and finding homes for them, not virtue signaling, one upping each other or reporting people to the province to “help”.

Oh, I need to stop. That underlying feeling of anger is bubbling up.

I think I’m really starting to burn out.

The Re-Farmer.

Our 2025 Garden: tomato harvest and the status of things

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After soooo much wonderful rain yesterday, I really wanted to see how things were going in the garden while doing my rounds.

When I got to the bed with the ripening Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes, I decided to go ahead and harvest them. They’re a touch on the green side, but they will continue to ripen inside. I also grabbed the few bush beans that were available to gather.

I rather like the effect of the tomatoes reflected in the stainless steel bowl I put them in!

The next photo is of the one developing pumpkin that I hand pollinated; there’s another on that vine, but its flower has now opened yet. I’ve added support to the vine itself, to take some of the weight off the plastic trellis netting, but the pumpkin has already gotten heavier enough to start pulling down on it again. We will construct a sling for it soon. The vine can handle the weight. The temporary plastic trellis netting cannot.

The Hopi Black Dye sunflowers have had a lovely growth spurt and are getting quite tall. They should have seed heads by now, though, so it’s unlikely we will get anything to harvest. Even the Red Noodle beans have started to show signs of growth. Just barely. I don’t expect them to even start climbing the trellis before the growing season is done.

Of course, I checked on the new food forest transplants. Especially the Opal plum, with its fresh new growth.

And newly missing leaves.

I guess all that rain washed off the anti-deer spray I used on it, and the protective frame.

I went and got the piece of chicken wire I’d used to try and protect the Albion strawberries last year. It turned out to be just long enough to to around the frame. This, at least, the deer will not be able to get through!

The big crab apple tree that has the small but delicious apples is just reaching its peak period. Many of the apples are looking very red right now, though there are still plenty that aren’t ripe yet, among them. We could probably start harvesting some crab apples now, though they’re so small, it’s a lot more work to use them for any cooking. I grab a few on the way by to munch on as I do my morning rounds.

I was debating which project to work on today, but everything it still so wet, I might just stick to indoor projects and start some laundry. No hanging on the line, today, even though we’re not expecting rain. It’s still too humid. We’re also still under an air quality warning for smoke, though we are now on condition yellow instead of condition red.

We have had enough rain that even the grass has come out of dormancy and had started to grow again. We might even have lawn to mow, instead of having just a few patches growing. The overgrown area where the old garden used to be is going to need cleaning up soon. I’d left the alfalfa that was coming up to bloom for any pollinators we might have – there’s a lot less these days, than in the spring, probably because of all the smoke. Their bloom time is ending now, and the burdock is starting to get big, will start flowering soon, so we need to cut all that back before the burrs get too nasty. We might be able to start on that tomorrow. Depending on how things go today, I should be able to go in with the loppers and cut back the poplars saplings that are trying to take over.

I didn’t get a picture but the rain came down so yard yesterday that the almost white lengths of maple used in the wattle weave bed in progress are now grey with splattered soil from inside the bed! Which is saying something, since the soil is all pulled into the middle, to make room to work on the wattle weaving.

According to the forecast, today and tomorrow are going to reach a relatively cool high of 19C/66F, but the day after, we’re expected to scream up to a high of 28C/82F, with a possible small rainfall in the early evening. Then its supposed to drop down to more humane highs, hovering around 20C/68F, for the next while. No more rain, though. The monthly forecasts sees only one more rainfall between tomorrow and the end of the month. It also says we can expect the temperatures to climb up to 31C/88F on the last day of the month, and 33C/91F by Sept. 1st.

We’ll see what actually happens.

If we’re going to get any sort of harvest with the winter squash or pole beans, we need to have all of September to be warm. Especially the overnight temperatures, and that’s where things get dicey.

What this does show me is that, as we build our raised beds, we’ll have to think ahead to including ways we can cover them to protect them during cold nights, or even create mini greenhouses, with frames that can go over relatively tall plants. I couldn’t cover the radish bushes to protect them from the deer, for example, because none of the covers I have had room for them, except the box frame which is currently protecting the corn bed. We are working to keep the same dimensions on all the beds, so the covers can be interchangeable. The beds in the East yard are all 3’x9′, and that’s the size we’re working with. The log beds in the main garden area will all be 4′ wide on the outside which, with the thickness of the logs, means about 3′ of growing space inside. They will all be 18′ long, so two covers will fit on each bed. Once we have chickens, some of those covers will be mobile chicken coops, too, so we can let the chickens clean up and fertilize the beds after they’ve been harvested from.

Every year has been a different gardening year – especially weather wise! – and every year, we learn a bit more of what conditions we can expect, and can plan around in the future.

That is a process I expect will never quite end, and I’m okay with that!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: first zucchini forming, a harvest for the day, and those trees have got to go!

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First up, I spotted our first blooming female zucchini flower today!

There’s another one under it that bloomed and was done before I ever saw that it was a female flower.

There were no male flowers open at the time, so I grabbed a couple of older ones and tore off the petals so I could access the pollen and hand pollinate. The first one had water pour out when the petals were torn off, so I used a second one, too, just in case the first one didn’t have any viable pollen. At this point, it’s too early to tell if the one I missed had a chance to be pollinated before it was done blooming.

This afternoon, I decided to use up a whole bunch of odds and ends vegetables in the fridge, along with some fresh stuff, in the slow cooker. I’ve been leaving the potato bed for the past while but decided to dig some up for today’s use.

I had dug some up before under the potato plants that had died back the most, which was at the north end of the bed, closer to that row of self seeded trees my mother left to grow. The entire potato bed died back early, without ever developing flowers, but the north end of the bed had them dying back the fastest.

Well, I’ve pretty much confirmed why.

The potatoes in that basket are from under four potato plants that were at the end of that bed. That mass beside the basket is capillary roots from the elm trees nearby that came up while I was digging around for the potatoes. I was hitting more, larger roots as well. I’ve de-rooted these beds several times, and they come back so fast!!

Those trees have GOT to go! They’re killing our garden!

I dug up more potatoes closer to the middle of the bed, and was still getting a lot of capillary roots like that, but found more potatoes under two plants, than under the four I’d dug up first.

Since I finally had a container on hand, I harvested Spoon tomatoes. It’s been a while since I picked any, so there were plenty to gather. Thankfully, the mesh on this basket is fine enough to hold the tomatoes! Some of them were so small, they would have fallen through if they weren’t being held in place by the larger ones. I had to be careful to keep the potatoes from rolling over and squishing them.

Then I grabbed a few more carrots to add to what we already had inside, and the only ripe bush beans I could find.

In the last photo of the slide show above, it shows all the vegetables I prepared for the slow cooker, seasoned and tossed with avocado oil. All from our garden!

There are the potatoes, carrots and Spoon tomatoes, of course. Plus I finally used that one big turnip that I’d left to get big and go to seed, but the deer ate most of the greens. There’s kohlrabi in there, and more beans that we had in the fridge. It took three “harvests” of bush beans to have enough to make it worth using them in anything! Oh, and there is Swiss Chard and a whole bulb of fresh garlic in there, too.

We have a large Crockpot, and the vegetables almost filled it completely. They will shrink as they cook down, though. After I left for my mother’s, my daughter browned some ground turkey, along with some of the yellow onions we still have left from last year’s garden (they have lasted a really long time!!!) and mixed that in later on.

The slow cooker was set to high for 3 hours. Since I’ve come back from my mother’s, I’ve checked on it a few times and added more time. All those potatoes need extra time to cook through, as I deliberately left them in big chunks. For I still don’t know how it turned out!

The house is smelling amazing, though, and I’m getting hungry! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: small harvest, with a first!

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Just a quick garden post before I cover the rest of the day.

We have a first!

I harvested just a few things to include with supper. There was one Sub Arctic Plenty tomato that was ripening earlier than the others, and I decided to wrestle my way through the protective netting to see how it was. It came off the vine very easily, even though parts of it look a touch greener than red.

I also checked the one Black Beauty tomato. That’s still hard as a rock.

So the family will get their first taste of a new variety of tomato. I also picked some Uzbek Golden carrot, a couple of Napoli carrots, and some Swiss Chard, all from the winter sown beds.

We had quite a bit of rain last night. I’d used about 3/4 of the full rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden yesterday, and it was full this morning. I can really see a difference in the garden. Things that have been stagnating for more than a month are showing new growth. The Hopi Black Dye sunflowers have all shot up in height, and I can see where flower heads are starting to form. Even the summer squash … well… some of them… have had a growth spurt. We had more rain this afternoon, too. There is a huge system slowly rotating over the prairie provinces right now, and I am really praying that this means some of those fires are getting rained on!

Seeing how much of a difference it made in the garden, in such a short time, does give me a bit of home for this gardening season.

Just a little!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: Finally!

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Yes!!! Finally! Our first Turkish Orange eggplants are forming!

These were damaged quite a bit by that one cold night was had, shortly after they were transplanted. It set them back and, while I saw them blooming, I was beginning to think there would be no eggplants forming at all.

Today, while watering, I finally spotted some! In fact, in the space of a couple of days, there are now more eggplants forming that there are of the peppers, in the same bed. There are still only three peppers forming among the 9 plants. Just one eggplant has more than that forming!

Now, the question is… do we have enough season left for them? Normally, these would have 80 days to maturity from transplant. We have barely 30 days of growing season left before average first frost. I’m still going by Sept 10 as our average first frost date, even though the 30 year adjusted averages that just came out now says our average first frost dates are between Sept. 21 and 24. If I look at the monthly forecasts in my desktop weather app, we might not get frost until the second half of October. Since moving out here, we have had everything from a blizzard in October to first frost in November. So really, there’s no way to be sure. With how badly our transplants and spring sowing have been, in general, I’m really hoping for a long, mild fall. If that does happen again, we might actually have stuff to harvest and preserve for the winter. With the way things are going right now, we have just a few things we can harvest every couple of days, to supplement a meal or two.

While watering this evening, I am actually noticing some growth. I might be imaging things, but even the red noodle beans seem to be looking a bit greener, and a bit bigger. The Giant Fordhook chard I planted as a fall crop, where the Royal Burgundy bush beans failed, are still just barely there, but they are getting bigger! The winter squash are blooming – no female flowers, though – and I even spotted a couple of tiny zucchini forming! I don’t know if they got pollinated before the blossoms closed up. They weren’t open when I did my rounds this morning, or I would have hand pollinated them. The pumpkin vines are doing well. Two of them are quite a bit ahead of the others, and the female flower on one that I hand pollinated is now a growing pumpkin. I’m training that one up the trellis, so we’ll need to make a hammock to support the weight of the pumpkin. When the trellis is finished, it will be built to hold the weight of winter squash of all kinds, but we’re not there yet!

It isn’t a lot, but I’m pretty excited about any progress we get right now!

The Re-Farmer

Garden firsts, tiny harvest, long morning

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Today, I headed out early to feed the outside cats and do my morning rounds, since I needed to go to my mother’s fairly early.

There is actually some progress in the garden today!

The first of the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes is starting to develop a blush. As with so many other things, these tomatoes have stagnated in growth, but there are a few tomatoes developing at least. The rest are still very green.

In the next photo, we have our first open female pumpkin flower. I made sure to hand pollinate it, just to be on the safe side!

Last of all, I had a teeny, tiny harvest. A whole four of the yellow bush beans growing among the corn. It is odd to pick them when there were so few (from two plants, too!), but picking them will encourage more production.

I also picked the most Spoon tomatoes at one time for this year. There was maybe half a cup’s worth. This time, I washed and bagged them up to bring to my mother as a little treat. She’s not supposed to eat acidic foods like tomatoes, but loves them. These are so small and there are so few, they shouldn’t be an issue.

I headed over to my mother’s, getting to her place at around 9am. That’s when the lab opens, but she was scheduled for her morning med assist for 9:30. (She laughed in delight when she saw the teeny tomatoes!) So I helped her out with a few things and rubbed the Volataren on her back for her – something that the home care aid would have done, if I weren’t there. Then as she was getting ready to put on her slippers, I saw her toes needed some serious work! She had hired a foot care person to do her feet a while back and my mother told me she didn’t do a good job. As near as I can figure, though, it wasn’t a good job because her toenails are now long again. ???

I tried to do her feet, but it turned out she doesn’t have toenail clippers. Just fingernail clippers. Some of her toenails were so thick, they couldn’t fit into the clippers. Even scissors just slid off. She had a nail file I tried using, but it was so old, it was practically smooth.

Now on the shopping list for my mother: proper toenail clippers, and one of those callous grinders. There are special toenail grinders, but that would have to be an online purchase. I might order one for ourselves, actually. My husband needs help with his feet at times, too.

[side note: I sent a link to my husband to see what toenail grinder caught is attention and he came over to talk about it. He noticed that these grinders are basically just Dremels for toes – I had noticed that, too, and we both got a laugh over it. He has a variable speed Dremel and was suggesting we just buy the tips and use that. Which wouldn’t work too well for my mother! 😄)

While I was working in my mother’s feet, the home care aid arrived so I paused to let my mother take her meds. Normally, she would be having her breakfast with it, but she was fasting for one of her blood tests. She mentioned that to the aid, who said that she was going for blood tests herself, too.

After checking to make sure my mother’s back was treated, the care aid left. It took a while for my mother to get organized before we could leave. She decided she wanted to go to the bank today, too. Normally, she makes out a list of how many of each denomination she wants, but hadn’t done that, so she was looking all over for an old list. It took a while to redirect her away from that and assure her, she could still get the variety of denominations she wants, even without her list.

Thankfully, my mother was feeling better today than she was yesterday. She has to use a stool to get into the truck, with me lifting her slightly to help out, and she was concerned about whether or not she could do it today. She managed like a champ, though! Once at the lab, there was someone else at the counter, so I got her seated while she looked for her health care card. While waiting our turn, who should show up, but the health care aid we saw this morning! 😁

After my mother was checked in and the forms dropped off, we waited again. It turned out that they were short two people today. At the check in counter was an Asian guy that we’ve seen a few times. My mother prefers the girls, and they weren’t in today, so he was doing it all. At one point, he was at the counter and my mother was staring at him, then started crossing herself, repeatedly. Like she was trying to protect herself from the scary non-white person. *sigh*

The last time I brought her in for her monthly blood test, she asked me to make sure I was in the room with her while her blood was being drawn. It turned out that a while back, when I went to get an EKG done while she was getting her blood drawn, it was this guy that had drawn the blood, and she was convinced he faked it. She was positive that no blood was actually drawn, because she didn’t see any go into the vial.

The when she asked me to be there, it was one of the girls that drew her blood, but this time, it was the guy. As he was drawing her blood, with me sitting nearby, she actually spoke up, asking if he got the vein or not, because there was no blood going into the vial. Meanwhile, from where I was seeing, I was watching the vial fill. She had an extra test done this time, so I saw both of them fill. But my mother said she couldn’t see it.

I am now thinking this is related to her macular degeneration. Parts of her vision is obstructed so, because the guy drawing her blood wasn’t white, that must mean he was faking drawing her blood.

…

He was absolutely sweet with her, though, but sadly, that means nothing to my mother.

*sigh*

After her samples were drawn, we headed out and stopped at the bank. She hasn’t gone in ages and my brother has been getting her monthly cash for her, because it’s so difficult for her now. With his work hours, he’s only been able to take out smaller amounts through an ATM, and not all in the denominations she wants. This time, since she didn’t have her list, she asked me to go to the counter with her and make her requests as she had instructed me in the truck. This is a first. I usually go along to be available to help her with things, physically, but this time she actually wanted me to talk to the teller for her. The teller, of course, confirmed with my mother after I passed on the instructions, that it was what she wanted. My mother asking me to do something like this, especially involving money, is a really big shift.

The banking done, my mother was really hungry from her fasting, so she suggested we go somewhere to eat. It was early enough we still had to wait for the restaurant to open at 11. While there, someone else showed up to wait for the doors to open. My mother, being my mother, had her usual complaint every time we go to this place. The sidewalk to the door has broken edges on the concrete. She constantly rants about how they need to fix it, it looks bad, it makes the entire town look bad, it’s bad for business, etc. In reality, though, she just doesn’t like the look of it and demands it gets fixed for her. It really isn’t that bad. She started going on about it to the guy that was there, too, and we were both commenting that this would be very expensive to fix, and I pointed out that special permits would be needed. Plus, part of the area wouldn’t even belong to the restaurant, but to the town, so it would be the town’s responsibility to fix about half of it. All of which she angrily dismissed.

Then the poor guy came to unlock the door.

He held the doors open for my mother and her walker. My mother, meanwhile, didn’t miss a beat and went from complaining to us about the state of the sidewalk, to yelling about it at the poor guy. He did give an apology for it and said that it would be fixed when they could afford it, but my mother just kept being really rude and angry at him. I apologized, of course, but he seemed to take it in stride.

We had ourselves an excellent lunch, though, with my mother ordering a medium pizza for herself, so that she could take half of it home for her supper later on. Even with ordering, though, my mother was so impatient. She was hungry, which probably explained some of the behaviour, but she seems to think that if she tells the waitress how hungry she is, they will somehow magically produce her order instantly. Almost immediately after placing her order, she was complaining about how long it was taking! Once she got her food, though, she was very happy with it.

My mother insisted on paying for the meal, but she doesn’t believe in tips, so when she gave me just barely enough cash to cover the bill, I snuck a tip to the waitress. The last time my mother saw me leave a tip, she actually yelled at me on the way home over it.

That was our last stop, though, and my mother was more than happy to get home. Getting in and out of the truck is so difficult for her, but she manages it! Still, she had to stop and rest on her walker several times, just to walk the short distance to her apartment.

One of the things she was telling me to talk about with my brother (as her PoA) is about getting her a wheelchair. I tried asking her some questions about it, but she just said she needs a really comfortable wheelchair, and she can pay for it.

Now, we still have my late father’s folding wheelchair. That’s not what she’s asking for, though. She wants something “comfortable” (which is so subjective!). The problem is, I don’t think she has the arm strength to wheel herself around in a manual wheelchair. I tried to explain that to her, but it took several times for her to understand what I was getting at. Once she did, she tried to say that if she could stand at the counter and cook her own food, she could operate a wheelchair. I told her that there is a big difference between doing stuff at a counter or stove, and trying to move around her own weight. At which point she asked, what’s the alternative.

*sigh*

Several times now, my brother has tried to provide her with motorized mobility devices. Including a motorized chair that took up less space than her walker does. She refused to use it. When I brought it up, she said she didn’t like how jerky it was and she was afraid she would run into things. I told her, it was just a matter of getting used to it and learning how to use it.

In the end, I told her I would bring it up with my siblings but, in the mean time, I would bring my father’s wheelchair over. She could try it out and see just how well she can handle a manual chair. If she can, then we can look into getting her a “comfortable” wheelchair. Otherwise, we’d have to look into a power chair.

Our province does actually have a program that provides manual and power chairs on loan. On looking into the details, though, my mother doesn’t qualify, as she is in the process of being paneled for a nursing home.

The other problem I didn’t even bother bringing up is, my mother’s apartment is not wheelchair friendly. We would have to get rid of some of her furniture for her to be able to get around.

Well, we’ll be seeing my mother’s doctor next week. Perhaps there is something the doctor can do to expedite getting my mother into some sort of supportive living or long term care. As far as how the home care system paneling goes, they’re basically waiting for my mother to have a fall or something and end up in the hospital before she qualifies for anything. Which, of course, we’re doing everything we can to avoid!

In the end, I spent about three hours helping my mother get around and do the things she wanted. She was pretty exhausted by the time I got her home, and so was I! Enough that, once I got home, I ended up crashing for a couple of hours.

I still feel like I could sleep for a week.

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife came out, late this afternoon. They were returning their trailer from the camp ground up north and parking it. It was several hours of driving for them to get here. My brother was then running around like crazy, as he usually does! My SIL was able to catch me up on things while I gave her a tour of what I’ve been doing around with the garden. She really liked the new section of wattle weaving, and I told her about the issues I was having with the project, and my plans to get some basket willow, and where I would be planting them. Definitely with more planning than with the other willows we’ve got on the property! Some of them, like the ones near where the ejector is, should be cut down. They were planted way too close to the ejector and, even at its new location, their roots can destroy the system. I’m really surprised that they were planted there in the first place and, from the looks of some of them, someone already tried to cut them down at some point, and they just grew right back!

My brother and his wife have been talking about ways to help out with big jobs like that. We simply don’t have the tools and equipment to do a lot of it.

There isn’t a lot left of the season for this year, but next year I suspect there are going to be a LOT of changes and progress being made here, now that they no longer have their acreage to take care of, and can come out here more often. They’re even going to bring out a more permanent structure they were able to get a very good deal on. Something more like what in the UK is, I think, called a caravan. I can’t remember the name of it she told me. They want to be able to bring the grand kids out and have them stay the night, and that won’t work in the RV trailer they have right now.

I’m excited over their grandkids being able to come out here, too. They live in another province, so I hardly ever get to see them, and they’re growing so fast!!!

There are going to be so many changes here over the next few years!

The Re-Farmer

Future gardens: did I over do it? 😄

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Okay, so I took advantage of MI Gardener having a 40% sale on seeds. Which means I got a lot of things I wouldn’t normally have been able to get and still stayed in budget. Most of these will be for future gardens, as we continue to build more beds and extend further afield.

Here is what I ordered today. Click on the images to see them better. I’ll include links as I list them below, this time in alphabetical order.

Oh, the crazy thing about going back and looking up the links. When I placed the order, I selected “in stock” items only. Going back, I just went through all the seeds, not just categories and not just “in stock”. I found that quite a few things I ordered are now listed as out of stock – but there are things that I see listed as in stock, but weren’t there when I was placing the order from the in stock only list!

Must. Not. Place. Another order!!

Ah, well. Here is what I chose today. All links should open in new tabs.

Anise One for our developing herb garden. I had no idea anise could grow here, but it’s only 75 days to maturity, so we should have no problem.

Bachelor’s Button – blue
Bachelor’s Button – pink Years ago, I lived in a city where Bachelor’s Button practically grew wild and always loved them, but I had no idea they were also edible! These are deer resistant, so they will be planted strategically.

Butterneck Squash This one is a Canadian heirloom variety that is apparently almost extinct! So of course we’ll have to grow some to save seed. 90-100 days to maturity.

California Wonder Bell Pepper these are to restock our pepper seed inventory. It’s a thick walled pepper, which caught my attention. Some varieties we’ve tried had surprisingly thin walls. 75 days to maturity.

Canary Yellow Melon I’m as much a sucker for melons as I am for winter squash! 80 days to maturity

Caraway Another one for our future herb garden. 70 days to maturity.

Chocolate Stripes Tomato A pretty slicing tomato for the family to try. 75-80 days to maturity.

Coffee Seeds (coffea arabica) I always like to have at least one “for fun” thing and one “challenge” thing. This will be a “challenge” thing – and to be grown as a house plant, as this is a zone 11-13 item. 2-4 years to maturity, and yes, this is a real coffee plant that we could potentially harvest beans from to make our own coffee. This one is more for the girls, since they are the coffee drinkers in this household.

Dazzler Red Cosmo I got this because the red is a less common colour for them, and they are great for attracting pollinators. 75-90 days to maturity.

Gold Rush Wax Bean (Bush) I did already get a tri-colour mix of bush beans, but I’ve almost used up the yellow bush bean seeds I had in my current collection, so this is a replenisher. 55 days to maturity.

Golden Boy Celery I’ve never grown celery before. The one time I tried, it was a pink variety and I started them way too late. These ones, however, are 80-90 days to maturity, so I shouldn’t have that problem.

Golden Hubbard Squash Yeah, I’m a sucker for the winter squash! These are a smaller and more prolific variety of Hubbard that grows to “only” 5-15 pounds. 95-110 days to maturity

Hales Best Jumbo Cantaloupe Melon Yup. Another melon! These are described as being more drought tolerant and thrives in hot weather – kinda like we’ve got right now. 85 days to maturity.

Long Grain Rice I looked these up out of curiosity and was shocked. We can actually grow this variety of rice here! Gotta try it! 90-100 days to maturity.

Manitoba Tomato This is an all purpose tomato, and the variety my mother used to grow here, so I know these should work. With only 65 days to maturity, we could direct sow these, instead of starting them indoors.

Meadow wildflower mix One of these days we’ll get a wildflower mix that will take! 90 days to maturity.

Oaxacan green dent corn (x2) There aren’t a lot of seeds per packet, so I got two of these. As a dent corn, we would be growing these to make corn flour. Only 80 days to maturity, too!

Orange flesh honeydew melon Oh, look! Another melon! We have the green flesh honeydew (none of the melons we have this year are going to produce, and I still don’t know what happened), and now orange flesh. 75-110 days to maturity.

Red Long of Tropea onion We’ve grown this variety before, and they did really well. We have our own onion seeds, but none of this variety. 90-110 days to maturity.

Red Wethersfield onion While I think we these are the red onions we have in the mix of our own seeds collected, they were from onions that had died off after transplanting – we thought! – but came up the next year. We’ve never actually successfully grown edible bulbs of these, so I figure it might be worth trying again. 100 days to maturity.

Rouge vif D’Etampes / Cinderella Pumpkin This variety caught my attention partly because it’s listed as being able to last in storage longer. 110 days to maturity.

Russian Tarragon Another one for the future herb garden, and it apparently overwinters well with little protection. Not sure if that applies to our zone 3 winters, but no zone is listed at all for it. 60 days to maturity.

Stowell Evergreen Corn (x2) Another corn, and another addition to our collection of white things! This variety is listed as drought tolerant, which is important for where we are. There aren’t a lot of seeds in the packet for something that needs to be wind pollinated, so I got two. 80-100 days to maturity.

Tom Thumb Dwarf Pea (x2) This variety grows to only 13-18 inches high. No trellis needed. Which would make it much, much easier to protect from deer! Not a lot of seeds per packet, so I got two. 45 days to maturity.

Triticale (x2) Okay, this one is for well into the future! At some point, we do want to grow our own grain to make flour. I’ve already got some heirloom wheat that is particularly noted for making good bread flour though, even with two packets, the amount of seeds I have for those would be grown only to collect more seeds for the first couple of years! The triticale comes in 500 seed count packets, but I still got two. Even so, the first crop would be mostly to get more seed for larger, future plantings. Thinking well ahead on this one! 85 days to maturity.

There we have it! My second order with MI Gardener, in as many days, and third order this summer. 😄

While there are still some things we will get from other sources, these orders will set us up for several years, as we build and expand on our garden beds and growing areas, plus more flower seeds for the pollinators. The additions for the herb garden has brought that goal closer to reality by quite a bit. There are many other herbs I’d love to get, but most of them need a much longer growing season than we’ve got. At least until we get a permanent greenhouse.

I seem to have become addicted to getting seeds like I used to be with getting yarn. Seeds are cheaper, though! Especially with sales like this one. This order totaled US$36, with a savings of US$24. No shipping costs, either. Plus, they have a points program and I now have enough points to get $5 off my next order.

Which is not going to happen for a while. I’ve got lots of seeds now!

Honest!!

At least until their new inventory comes in, after this blow out sale clears space for them.

😂🤣😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden (and beyond): Oops. I did it again

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Yup.

I ordered more seeds.

I placed an order with MI Gardener previously, and it arrived a while ago. So why did I order more? Well, MI Gardener prices are some of the best around right now, even when ordering from Canada. I’m on their email list and they announced a 25% off sale that started today. I happened to be up past midnight, so I went ahead and placed an order to take advantage of it. In fact, I might even made another one. I haven’t decided yet.

I took advantage of our winter sowing experiment to clean out my seed inventory of older seeds, so part of my goal was to replace things with fresh seed. With the sale, I’m continuing that, but I am also building my my seed inventory with extra. How much we actually plant will depend on how many beds we have ready this fall for winter sowing as well as for spring sowing and transplanting next year.

So, without further ado, this is what I ordered last night/this morning.

This time, I’m going to link to each item I ordered. All links should open in a new tab. They are list below in the same order as in the images above.

Tigger Melon This was something I had in my wish list. It’s a tiny, personal size, melon. More importantly, it takes 90 days to full maturity, and we average 99 days between first and last frost. In theory, we could direct sow them and get a harvest, though I would start them indoors, just to be safe.

Summer Savory This year, I bought a summer savory transplant. We plan to expand our culinary herb garden, and this will be part of that. Only 65 days to maturity.

Golden Sweet Pea I got another colourful variety last time. We have other peas as well. I just like to have a variety to shake things up. 😊 60 days to maturity.

Black Futsu Squash We have a variety of winter squash seeds, but we’re still experimenting to see what we like. This variety has an edible skin and stores 4-5 months. It needs 110 days to maturity, so definitely one to start indoors.

Orange Currant Tomato This looks very much like an orange version of the Spoon tomatoes we’ve been growing for a few years now – and it the only tomato that has anything we can harvest at the moment. It would be great if these do as well. 65-70 days to maturity.

Yellow Swiss Chard We have Rainbow Chard. We have Fordhook Giant Chard. Why not Yellow Chard, too? As with the other chards, this one is heat tolerant, drought tolerant and can grow in cold weather, so it can be succession sowed as well as winter sown. 28-57 days to maturity.

Sweet Siberian Watermelon One of these days, I’d really like to get watermelon! I only get short season varieties, of course, but so far, none have done well. The one Cream of Saskatchewan melon we got last year about about the size of a baseball, and they’re supposed to be much bigger. This variety is supposed to produce 15-20 pound fruit, yet has only 80 days to maturity. It does come with the warning that it needs lots of room to spread!

Shogoin Turnip a good cool weather variety that needs only 40-60 days to maturity. Plus, it’s really pretty.

Lemon Squash In our first couple of gardening years, we had good summer squash production. Then… nothing seems to be growing! I’m hoping this variety will do better. It’s supposed to be prolific, and only 50-60 days to maturity.

Hailstone Radish with finally being able to grow radishes, and even radish seed pods, through winter sowing, I’m more than happy to experiment with different varieties. This one is only 25 days to maturity!

Garbanzo Bean Okay, this is an odd one. Until fairly recently, I didn’t even know garbanzo beans, aka chickpeas, could grow here. I happen to really like chickpeas. However, they are also drought tolerant, nitrogen fixers. They are 100 days to full maturity, though, so it’s touch and go for this one.

Early Prolific Straightneck Squash So this seems to be another winter squash with an edible skin? The description specifies it is like zucchini, and that the whole thing can be eaten. I’m not sure, but with our luck with any squash these days, I’m willing to try it! Heat tolerant and somewhat drought tolerant. Only 70 days to maturity.

Chicory Okay, I’m not sure how to categorize this one. Perhaps it’s one for the kitchen garden. The leaves can be eaten, and it can be used medicinally, but it’s mostly the roots I’m interested in, as they can be used as a coffee substitute. I remember my parents sometimes buying it at the store, but never tried it. I don’t drink coffee, but my daughters do, and that stuff’s getting really expensive. So… worth a try. Especially with only 80 days to maturity.

Caspar Eggplant I’ve definitely got a “white” theme going on this year! This is described as a rare Japanese variety. Of course, I see “rare” and I’m all for growing it to save seeds. 😄 75 days to maturity.

Blueberry Tomato yes, another tomato to try! A cherry tomato with a lovely appearance. Hopefully, it’ll taste as good as it looks. 75-85 days to maturity.

Purple Savoy Cabbage Growing cabbages is something that’s been our list for when we have more space in the garden. Cold tolerant and good for storage. Only 65-70 days to maturity, too.

Daikon Radish I actually meant to order this last time, but they were sold out. I got the icicle radish instead. My younger daughter really likes Daikon radish. The last time we tried to grow it, something ate them as soon as they sprouted. With winter sowing, we might actually succeed this time! Best of all, only 55 day to maturity. Long for a radish, but well within our growing season.

Florence Fennel This is another one that we tried before, but it did not succeed. We didn’t have the right growing conditions for it. This is one of those vegetables we like, but almost never buy, just as a matter of budget priorities. 70 days to maturity.

And now I’ve gone and removed everything I’ve ordered from my wish list, so I don’t accidentally buy them again! 😄

All of these cost US$27, which is pretty darn good!

Oh, look at me… I’m already going through what they’ve still got in stock to see if there’s something else I want to order.

😂

Anyhow.

We will now have lots of options to choose from when we do our winter sowing in the fall. Last fall, I just scattered mixes of seeds. This time, now that I’ve seen how things worked out, the sowing will be more planned and more attention paid to spacing. Plus, our seed inventory is built up again, so if some things don’t work out, there are other things that can be sown in their stead.

Of course, that means continually adding more garden beds!

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: still kicking! Plus, bonus kittens and insane prices

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First, the cuteness!

When I went out this morning to feed the yard cats, I had an adorable little surprise. Fluffy Colby was with some other cats INSIDE the sun room! I found the other three kittens around the cat shelters and they did run off, but Colby stayed close.

When it was time to bring out the kitten soup bowls, I found him sharing a tray with Havarti. He ran off a bit when I put the kitten soup bowl down, but he was soon back, sharing with with his cousin.

I want to pet that kitten so much!!

The garage kittens, sadly, still won’t come closer.

Today, my plan was to focus on finally giving the garden, and the food forest additions, a deep watering. Particularly since tomorrow will be hotter again, and I will be doing my Costco shop in the city. Tomorrow is supposed to reach 25C/77F. Today reached a comparatively cool high of 23C/73F. I didn’t need to go anywhere today, so I hoped to get some progress outside.

Well, of course, that changed.

My husband called in refills for his injections, so a trip to the pharmacy was in order. Of course, I combined errands as much as possible, grabbing our big water bottles to refill at the grocery store after getting the meds. Then, since I was there anyhow, I checked out the sales and picked up a few things.

There were also a few things I did NOT pick up.

Like Necterines.

$5.49/lb, or $12.10/kg

*gasp*

*choke*

Nectarines always tended to be more expensive, but they still were usually under $2/lb in season.

The next image is of a beef tomahawk steak. This is a cut I almost never see. I know people on carnivore that prize these as having an excellent protein to fat ratio. I just can’t imaging spending $84.95 ($55.09/kg) for about 3 pounds of bone-in meat (1kg=2.2lbs) that would be just one meal. Sure, that might be enough for the entire day on carnivore, but… yikes!

I did pick up a family pack of stew meat, though, which was in the $20 range.

Once back at home, I was soon outside doing the watering. When I got to the high raised bed, though, I also did some harvesting. In this bed, I had left one Purple Prince turnip to go to seed. Which it did.

Then the deer at the seed stalk.

So, I harvested the turnip.

Look at the size of that thing!

It’s probably past its best stage for eating, but it wasn’t regrowing a new seed stalk, so I figured it was harvest it, or it would start rotting.

In the next photo, you can find the fuzzy friend I found on one of the leaves. I broke off that section of leaf and set it aside, so as not to disturb the caterpillar. I have no idea what type of caterpillar it is. Hopefully, not something I will regret saving!

In the last image, you can see the turnip with the Uzbek golden carrots I also harvested. I was careful to pull the biggest ones. I’m leaving the smaller ones to give them a change to get bigger, instead of just harvesting the entire bed as I was considering doing. I found a single orange Napoli carrot large enough to harvest. I see hints of orange on some of the other carrots, but for the most part, it’s the Uzbek Golden carrots that have been growing. The Napoli carrot seeds were a couple of years older, and I finished off the last of what was left in the packet. I didn’t expect many of those to germinate.

For all the garden struggles this year, things are still kicking! In both winter sown beds, the radish seed stalks that the deer ate are trying to recover.

They’re blooming again, and sending out more leaves in some of them.

While watering the Spoon tomatoes, I noticed something. When they were being transplanted, I pruned off the bottom leaves before planting them inside the protective collars. One transplant had a larger branch that I pruned off. It was so nice and strong, I decided to just stick it into the ground between two other tomatoes and giving it a chance to grow.

It’s still tiny but, as you can see in the next image above, it’s producing tomatoes!!! The entire plant is maybe 8 inches high, if that. Just one little branch, and it’s producing!

As for those Royal Burgundy beans in front of the Spoon tomatoes – the whole three plants that emerged – one of them has a tiny bean starting to grow! I didn’t get a picture, but one of the yellow Custard beans planted with the tomatoes in the East yard had a whole bunch of tiny bean pods forming. It’s really late in the season, but we might actually have beans to harvest before summer is over!

Even the sugar snap peas are trying to make a come back! Some of them are dying back – they are well past their season – but after the deer munched away at them, some of the plants are pushing out new growth, and blooming! I’ve got one Super Sugar Snap pea plant that I’m leaving (and the deer have left alone) to fully mature so I can save the seeds, but it looks like we might have a few more fresh pods to enjoy, too.

If the deer don’t get to them, first!

It’s encouraging to see some signs of the garden trying to recover and grow. The tiny summer squash are getting a bit bigger, and blooming, though still just male flowers. The winter squash seem to be recovering a bit, too, and some are blooming. The melons are still tiny, but some of them are blooming. The pumpkins are doing quite well, and one of them even has a female flower bud showing!

Whether or not any of this will have time to recover, grow and produce before our season runs out is questionable. With some things, unlikely. Looking at the monthly forecast, it’s possible we’ll have all of September with no frost, though we would probably still need to cover things on colder nights. August, at least, looks like it’ll stay pretty warm. Of course, such long term forecasts are completely unreliable. I’m still going to assume our average Sept. 10 first frost date.

After finished up in the garden and bring the little harvest in, I used some of the carrots, onions from last year – yes, we still have a few! – and an entire head of fresh garlic in a beef and barley dish for my husband and I. The girls hate barley, but my husband and I love it, so they get to make their own supper using some of the fresh fish I picked up for them, yesterday. There will be enough of the beef and barely for my husband to have tomorrow, as well, while I am in the city. My younger daughter is having some PCOS issues right now, so she won’t be able to come with me this time. Which is fine; I don’t actually need the help, but I do like her company. I’ve been doing so much better myself, since I’ve been on the anti-inflammatories, I’ve actually been able to handle these outings better, too. I’m only taking them at the end of the day, instead of twice a day, before with my last meal before bed. I can take them up to 3 times a day, as needed. I just haven’t needed to take that many!

I haven’t taken any pain killers at all since I started on the anti-inflammatories. I do still have pain. Particularly if I lie on my left hip for too long, and I still have issues with my injured left arm. The pain, however is now more specific, and really not all that bad. Nothing worth taking more meds over. I should probably take some painkillers before I leave for the city, though, since I’ll be doing a lot of walking on concrete, and these shopping trips really take a lot out of me.

Our 2025 Garden: “just enough” harvests

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This afternoon, I harvested just a few things to use right away.

In the first image, I finally harvested that White Vienna kohlrabi I’ve been eyeballing for a while now! I also grabbed a smaller Purple Vienna kohlrabi.

They were peeled and quartered to go into a roaster with potatoes and carrots, including the Uzbek Golden carrots in the photo. I made sure to taste test them, first. If I had to choose, I’d say the Purple Vienna was tastier, but I think I might have allowed the White Vienna to get too big before I harvested it, so that might account for the taste difference. Once peeled, there’s really no visual difference between them.

In the next photo in the slideshow above, I picked some of the largest beets that had their greens eaten by deer. On one of the albino beets, you can see where the deer actually chomped off part of the beet root, too! These, I’m leaving for my daughters to get creative with.

I went to my mother’s this evening to do her med assist, as home care didn’t have anyone for her two evening med assists. I didn’t bring anything from the garden for my mother at the time, but I will be in her town again tomorrow. I’m meeting a friend as she drops her car off at the garage to be checked out. Originally, she was going to come by and pick me up on the way, but my mother’s almost completely out of her medications, so I want to make sure to get her bubble packs from the pharmacy – and that they get properly locked way in her lock box! Last month, she snuck one of the bubble packs away and hid it, for those days when home care simply doesn’t show up.

Since I’ll be leaving quite early to meet my friend, I’ve already prepared a bag with some fresh potatoes and some garlic bulbs from the ones curing under the canopy tent outside for my mother and left it in the truck. I had already promised her some garlic, and I think she’ll really like the fresh potatoes, too.

Also, I’m happy to say that my not being up to watering the garden this morning was not a problem. We got a lovely little downpour this afternoon!

Tonight is supposed to be a fair bit cooler. Hopefully, that means I’ll finally be able to get some real sleep!

The Re-Farmer