growing food

Morning harvest, kitty cuddles, and a lovely day

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It has been a bit longer than usual since I’ve actually done a morning harvest. With all the stuff going on for the past while, I lost track of time! I do try to harvest at least every other day. Since I’m in the habit of taking pictures what I harvest, unless it’s just one or two tomatoes or something like that, I checked the dates on my photos. Turns out, I haven’t done a harvest in 4 days!

Well, I got a pretty good one, this morning!

In the photo are a few San Marzano tomatoes at the top, some black cherry tomatoes, and a nice bunch of Forme de Couer tomatoes. I had to battle some very spiky stems to reach those G Star patty pan squash! With the beans, there are all three varieties in there, including a very decent amount of the Royal Burgundy bush beans – but this is the first time I picked any of the green Seychelle beans from the main garden area, and not just from the trellis over the Crespo squash. I had planted some Seychelles in the gaps where the purple Carminat beans failed to germinate, but I think only 3 Seychelle germinated. However many there were, there’s only one plant left, and it’s finally producing beans!

Among the Carminat beans, I found a couple that had gotten too big to harvest; they would no longer be tender, so I left them on the vine. There probably isn’t time enough, but who knows. They might fully mature and give me a few seeds I can plant next year! This is definitely a variety that grows well here, and we do enjoy them, so we do want to grow them again.

Of course, along with checking on the garden, I checked on the kitties. After setting the food out, I tried to do a head count.

I counted 34 cats and kittens.

*sigh*

I don’t even want to think of how many there would be, if we hadn’t lost so many kittens this year, and at least one adult. There are other adult cats that I haven’t seen in a while, but they may come back and stay for the winter. Some of them, anyhow.

Eye baby is pretty active among the kittens, but also has her favourite place to hang out, in the cat cage.

Which she can’t do right now, because I took that cat bed out to give it a wash!

So she made do on the blanket, instead.

Her cuddle buddy doesn’t seem to care, either way! This bigger kitten seems to be rather protective of eye baby.

Or just likes to use her for a pillow.

~~~~~ pause for interruptions and treating of eye baby~~~~~

I’m back!

We just gave eye baby her daily dose of antibiotics, and a feeding of cat soup from the modified bottle. I did something a bit different, this time.

I remembered we were gifted one of those mixers, where you can make individual size smoothies or whatever. I used that to make the cat soup. It worked. We had zero issues of bits paté clogging the nipple.

Why didn’t we think of this before? 😄

I still don’t know what to make of that eye. I think it’s getting better overall, but I also still think the eye itself is lost.

Oh, and we have determined something else. At least I did, only just now, when I let eye baby back out in the sun room.

She, is a he.

The girls had been able to determine that when they took care of the cats outside recently. A couple of the kittens, including eye baby, decided to roll onto their backs and give a good view. The other kitten was female, but eye baby is definitely a little boy.

But I am getting ahead of myself!

Aside from my usual morning routine, I had a day “off” today. A friend of mine from another province is in town right now, and we had a lunch date!

After getting one of the girls to distract the outside cats away from the truck with some treats, I headed to town a bit early. There was a store I wanted to check out, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. What I did get, however, was clear Gorilla tape. That will be very useful in setting the “greenhouse” around the eggplant and hot pepper bed. I’m hoping that the two clear shower curtains, or the two clear table protectors, with be long enough to go all the way around the box frame, and I had been wondering how I would join them together. This should be strong enough to hold.

I then went to the dollar store and ended up getting a several packages of angle braces that can be used to reinforce the donated cat shelter, instead of the triangle blocks of wood I was intending to use. These would be much better for the size of wood the shelter is made out of. I also got a few more things to use on the shelters, plus new sonic deer/wildlife screamers for the truck. I was down to one, and they’re not much good if there isn’t a pair of them.

I had just finished putting them on the truck and started heading to where we had arranged to meet, when my friend caught up with me. Perfect timing!

We had intended to go to a fish ‘n chips place for lunch, at 1pm, that had reopened recently. They’d had a fire some time ago, and it took quite a long time to get things up and running again, and I wanted to see the renovations. They were so incredibly busy, though, we barely got in the door, and saw that every table was full (granted, there isn’t room for a lot of tables anyhow) with lots of people waiting to place orders at the counter. So we left and walked up the block to a Thai place. I’d thought this place had closed and moved to the city, but I guess they’d opened a second location, instead. I haven’t been there in years, but my friend has been going there regularly since she’s been in town.

We have a very lovely, quiet, lunch, with excellent service!

It was really great to be able to sit and talk and get all caught up with each other.

After lunch, we just walked around and went to different places, checking out the marina and the local art club’s art gallery, and stopping at other restaurants for her to collect take out menus for her mother, who still lives out here. One place didn’t have any take out menus and the guy I asked said it was all their website, but her mother isn’t online, so that was of no use for her!

Town was really busy, as a lot of people use this long weekend to close up their cottages for the winter, and spend one last weekend on the beach before their kids go back to school. It wasn’t too bad, really, but neither of us enjoy crowds! All in all, though, we spent a couple of hours just hanging out together, and it was grand!

After we finally said our goodbyes – we may or may not have a chance to get together before she has to leave – I made a quick stop at the grocery store before going home. My husband has a birthday this month, so we’ll be doing things for him over the next week or so. We never celebrate birthdays on the actual day. 😄

I picked up some snacks he likes for now, and the girls tucked away the ice cream I got for later. My younger daughter plans to bake him a cake. His take out meal of choice was Chinese food, and I confirmed their hours while I was in town and got a fresh take out menu, just in case anything had changed.

They don’t have a website. 😄

We will be able to do the take out on Tuesday – after the long weekend is over!

It looks like I’m going to be doing a lot of running around over the next couple of weeks. We’ve got not only my husband’s birthday stuff going on, but the girls and I are taking my mother out to a nature reserve as part of her 93rd birthday celebrations – sort of. My mother said she didn’t want any fuss for her birthday this year, but she did want an outing to the nature reserve with my daughters, so we’re going to do both. Then there’s at least one appointment for my mother that I will be driving her to, and hopefully another in her home with the home care guy. My husband has to get to a lab for some bloodwork. I will hopefully see my friend one more time before she leaves. I also need to get back to the town my mother lives in to pick up kibble and lysine at the feed store, and will likely be back another day to pick up the clear plastic roofing material I’d ordered from the hardware store.

All of that in just the first two weeks of September, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something!

Meanwhile, I still don’t have the date for the spay/neuter the rescue has set up for us! I’ll have to contact her again. They’ve been insanely busy, too.

A couple of weeks from now, we should have someone coming in to excavate and repair the expeller on our septic system.

This is going to be a really crazy month!

After that, things should settle down, though.

I hope!

Pretty much all of this is good stuff, though, so no complaints!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: squash, melons and pumpkin progress – and my little follower! Also, eye baby update

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After my last post, I intended to grab something to eat, then head outside and see what I could get done while the light was still good.

As an aside, after I published my last post, I hit the AI “generate feedback”. It had the usual, break up your paragraphs, include photos, etc. – then at the very end, it included an encouraging statement about making sure I ate regularly! Too funny!

So, for the AI, should I do that again: this post is going to have Instagram slideshows of photos. Lots of them.

I didn’t get outside as quickly as I intended, however. I had started to make a meal for myself when my daughter came down and asked if I wanted to do charcuterie and Columbo with her.

Heck yes!

My husband doesn’t like charcuterie, and his back can’t handle sitting in the living room for long, so the food I had started to cook because his supper, instead. 😄

My older daughter wasn’t able to join us either; she’s been up all night and all day, busting her butt, trying to get several commissions finished before her end of the month deadline. She did come down and grab a plate to take upstairs, though.

My younger daughter and I quite enjoyed the Columbo episode. It was a season 4 episode, and they were hour long movies at this point of the series.

By the time we were done, there was still light out, so I did my evening rounds, then remembered to take progress photos of all the squash, pumpkins, gourds and melons, with my hand in most of the shots, for perspective.

For some reason, though, Instagram turned my most of the photos upside down when they were shared. They were not upside down when I uploaded them! I also make extra sure when I’m taking the photos, that the camera on my phone hadn’t flipped orientation. It does that way too often.

With that caveat, let’s start with the Crespo squash bed.

There are more of them now, even after losing some! The darkest green one that’s bumpy is the oldest one. They are supposed to get really huge, though, but I’ll take a little one, too!

The second last photo in the slideshow (which is upside down) is in a cherry tree. The last one, also upside down, is one I couldn’t reach to have my hand in the shot. This one is in the A frame pole bean trellis.

Next are the Summer of Melons blend melons in the east bed. I had to split these up into three slideshows to fit them all, even with having multiple melons in some photos.

Still none of them are ready for harvest!

Next are the pumpkins, plus the drum gourds.

Why, Instagram? Why are these upside down?

The only drum gourd we’ve got that was getting bigger seems to be wilting away. There are other small ones on the vines, but none seem to be getting bigger.

It would have been really nice to have at least one drum gourd of a decent size! Ah, well.

Next up, more upside down images of the East winter squash bed.

The fourth photo in – the pale yellowish one – is one I was sure was dying off, but it seems that colour is what it’s actually supposed to be – and it’s starting to develop a textured surface. I hope it matures enough that we can identify the variety.

Here is the West bed of winter squash.

Once again, all upside down!

I’m fascinated by the weird lumpy shape of the squash in the second last photo!

The West melon bed was split up into two slideshows.

Also, upside down.

The first photo is all Summer of Melons blend, as is the second photo. There are actually two melons in that photo; the second one is hard to see, in the back. After that, it’s Sarah’s Choice and Pixie melons.

This set is all Sarah’s Choice and Pixie melons, with our one remaining Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon. The others that started to grow all died off. The one survivor is getting big – and looks more like a squash than a watermelon!

This image from the Heritage Harvest website is what they’re supposed to look like, when fully mature. The one I’ve got not only looks much lighter in colour, with no dark stripes, but seems to be developing ribs.

Considering I pre-germinated the melons after I’d started the winter squash, it’s not possible that I got the seeds and seedlings mixed up. No other seeds I started look like watermelon seeds, either.

Very curious!

While I was fighting my way around leaves and stems – and fighting off mosquitoes! – I had a little entourage following me around. It was all adult cats, except for this little cutie.

I don’t know why this one kitten has decided to follow me around the garden, but it does make me happy when I see it! I was even able to pick it up and carry it for a little while.

By the time I was done my evening rounds, and getting the photos, it was getting time to give eye baby her medication. We got everything ready, including the modified bottle with cat soup in it. When I came inside, I couldn’t see eye baby anywhere, but when I went out again to look for her, I quickly found her.

She started running towards the sun room from the shelters as soon as she heard me going through the old kitchen doors!

She was purring before I even picked her up!

She most definitely is enjoying these evening ministrations. Which is rather surprising, considering we wrap her up in a towel, dose her with medications, then get the fur around her eye wet, while moistening the … whatever it is… over her eye, and trying to rub the area around her eye as clean as we can first.

She also likes that modified bottle feeding, even though it gets pretty messy at times! No matter how much we mash up the cat food in the water/lysine mix, there’s always bits that manage to clog the modified nipple opening. Sometimes, it unclogs unexpectedly and she gets sprayed all over her mouth with cat soup! Even wrapped in a towel, it end up all over her neck and chest, too. It doesn’t seem to bother her one bit.

She does let us know when she’s done, though.

I still don’t know what to say about how her eye is doing. The swelling of the eyelids has gone down, but not completely. The swollen inner lids seem to be covering the eyeball, and the eye is still bulging out of its socket, though not at much. As we were tending to her, my daughter did see her attempt at blinking, and the eye does move, as if she’s trying to look from side to side.

For now, all we can do is keep up with the antibiotics the rescue provided for us, and giving her the supplemented cat soup. It doesn’t seem to be bothering her, she can obviously see out the other eye that is healed up, and she is quite active and playful.

Time will tell, I guess.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: evening harvest, and a little friend!

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Since I was heading to the city today, I didn’t try to see if anything needed to be harvested, while doing my morning rounds. I did it while doing my evening rounds, instead.

When I do my rounds, I usually have a cat or two, following me around. Sometimes, it’s Rolando Moon, wanting me to give her pets, then trying to scratch or bite me after I do. More often, of late, it’s been Syndol, who likes to be carried around, if he can convince me to pick him up. Other times, it’s this year’s Not-Junk Pile, (the previous Not-Junk Pile is now Toni the Tripod, and indoors. 😄) will follow me around.

Today, I had tiny friend, following me around!

I believe this is the kitten that pushes its way into the old kitchen – I really have to watch my feet when I open that door! – to explore. It even lets me pick it up and cuddle it for a while. This is the first time I’ve had one of this year’s kittens actively following me around the yards and garden beds, though. It’s hard to tell some of the white and black kittens apart, though. A few have distinctive markings, but the others… they just run around too much for us to get a good enough look at them to identify which is which!

I quite enjoyed having kitten company while harvesting these.

We’ve got all three types of beans in there, plus some Black Cherry tomatoes, and some Forme de Couer tomatoes. It’s getting that we have more tomatoes for fresh eating than my family can consume! Not enough to warrant going any canning or freezing, though. It’s been the same with the beans; more than we can eat right away, but not enough to make it worth processing. I think we might have enough to do a jar, maybe two, of quick pickled beans, but that’s about it.

It’s such a strange year. We plant with the goal to have enough to process for the winter months, but the spaces where we would have been planting stuff we’d harvest throughout the summer ended up being mostly winter squash and melons. Even the corn we planted as a trail of one variety, so not a lot there. We didn’t plant anywhere near as many beans, carrots, peas and summer squash we normally would have, and what we did plant, most didn’t even germinate. Even with three varieties of potatoes (only two that were planned), there isn’t a lot. We did plant four varieties of tomatoes, but cut back on how many plants we put in the ground – we still have tomatoes in the freezer from last year!

I am happy that we have so many winter squash and melons, but it’s going to be touch and go as to weather they’ll reach full maturity before the frost hit. The long range forecast still says we’re going to have a very hot two weeks in the middle of September, but the weather will do what it does, and the forecasts will probably change a few times between now and then! As it stands right now, we might not get a first frost until October. Which has happened before, since we’ve moved here. I seem to recall a fall where we didn’t get first frost until November, though I could be wrong on that.

Still, we’re expecting a few overnight lows that are on the chilly side, so I want to have that plastic around the eggplant and hot pepper bed soon. While not all the eggplants are fruiting, with the ones that are, I’m quite happy with what I’m seeing.

As an aside, while I was writing this, I got some updates on Button. He is doing fantastic, and getting spoiled rotten! In one photo sent, you can tell he’s getting bigger… but then there was a photo with him behind The Wolfman, and suddenly, he looks miniscule again! 😄😄 He’s got vaccinations and ear mite treatment this week, and then he’s ready to go. The woman that wanted to adopt him is still interested in him, and we’re hoping that doesn’t change, but sadly, too many people do change their minds at the last minute. The Cat Lady and her family have a whole bunch of cats living with them now, because of this.

We also just treated the eye baby kitten for the night, and gave her a feeding of cat soup, with my daughter holding her wrapped in a towel like a purrito. She seems to be getting quite used to the routine and accepting the ministrations, even if she doesn’t like parts of it. The swelling around that one eye does seem to be going down, but I’m still sure the eye itself is lost. Not even the rescue has a budget for her and, while it was suggested we could try turning her over to the humane society, chances are high they’d just euthanize her.

Which I shouldn’t be having a problem with, since we really do need to reduce the population, but I’d like to give them at least a chance to get adopted out.

Well, it’s time to call it a day and see if I can get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow, I need to follow up with the septic companies that haven’t called back yet. If I can’t get through to them, we need to contact the one company I did reach, and start making arrangements. This cannot be put off, now that we know about the problem!

Hopefully, the next time I write about it, I’ll have good news to pass on!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Finally! plus some updates

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My daughters took care of the garden this morning, while I headed into town for groceries, so I didn’t get a chance to check things out until this afternoon.

I had a very lovely surprise!

The white scallop squash is finally blooming!

All male flowers, though.

Meanwhile, not counting today, we’ve got only 14 days left before average first frost. Hard to say if we’ll get anything!

I did check on the long range forecast, and it has changed back to saying we’ll have temperatures of 30C/86F for the 10th and 11th – and his 32C/90F on the 12th! In fact, most of that week is now supposed to have highs in the 30s! Even the week after is supposed to be just below 30C/86F! The last time I looked at the September forecasts, we were looking at highs below 20C/68F, and lows dropping down to 2 or 3C/36-37F

What a difference in forecasts!

Me, I’m hoping the heat stays longer. With everything behind by about a month, we need every hot day we can get!

Right now, things have been pleasantly cooler. Overnight, we reached a low of 9C/48F. It got cold enough I actually turns the fans off in my bedroom. It must have been quite a relief for the girls upstairs! They get so much hotter out there.

In other things, I have not had any calls back from the other two septic companies. I’ll be in the city tomorrow, so I’ll give them that one more day, then try calling them again after that. If I still can’t get through to them, then we’ll just have to go with the one company I did connect with. I’ll just have to get confirmation with my mother, in paying for it, and my brother. I was a bit perplexed when he started messaging me, suggesting I track down someone that had done this sort of work for my father in the past, but who may not even live in the area anymore. Heck, for all I know, he might not even be alive anymore. I recognize the name, but have probably never met him in person. I thought my brother had a problem with the companies I’d contacted, but I think maybe he just remembered this guy and started suggesting him to me.

Then he started telling me about how the emergency back up pipe will need to be installed while it’s being worked on, and how he’s got a pipe extension that will drain the effluent into the maple grove (which we may still need) … as if it was going to be done tomorrow, or something!

I’m so anxious about all this, I honestly couldn’t tell if this was his way of telling me what I should be doing, instead of what I am doing. My brother is awesome, but we don’t do things the same way at times. I hadn’t even considered going to somebody who happens to have an excavator, rather than a licensed and insured company that specializes in this kind of work. When I asked him more about it, he just came back with, it’s not a problem, going with a company is fine.

I hate to think I’m doing something he thinks is the wrong way!

So basically, there was a potential diversion, but then it went away.

I did not call the scrap company today. I will do that later, because I did contact the guy that bought scrap cars for parts last year, as I remembered they’d been looking at them. I told him that we were looking into calling the scrap dealer for the threshing machine and several vehicles, including those two, but wanted to know if he was still interested in them.

So those are now sold. Not for as much as before, but still more than we’d likely get from the scrap dealer for them. He won’t be able to pick them up until the end of September, though, as he’d going into surgery tomorrow, and needs the time to recover. There was another vehicle, which basically just the shell of a panel van, he asked about, but my brother and I didn’t talk about any of the vehicles on that side of the outer yard fence. I would hope the scrap company can come earlier than the end of September, but if they do, I hope they can work around the two cars by the threshing machine.

Okay, I’m getting perplexed. As I’m writing this, I keep hearing the septic pump go off, but no one is using any water. It’s shutting itself off as it should, but why is the tank filling so quickly? I’m not hearing the well pump go off more often, which would happen if we had a leak of some kind that was fast enough to trigger the septic pump that often.

I wonder if it’s related to the problems at the expeller end? That’s some 300 feet away, though.

Man, I’ve been paranoid about the pumps since we’ve moved out here. Now, it’s even worse!

Relax, Re-Farmer. Breathe.

Think gardening thoughts. That should calm me down!

Meanwhile, I took advantage of the lovely cooler day and got some lawn mowing done, using the lawn tractor my brother lent us. I was going to try our riding mower, but the battery was dead again. My brother replaced that battery when he repaired it for us, so it shouldn’t be dying so quickly. I didn’t want to take the time to charge it, and just used my brother’s machine, instead. Not all the lawns needed to be done, and one area still has a piece of tree that broke in our recent storm, waiting to be broken down into firewood for the the fire pit. The grass around there doesn’t grow very fast, so it can do without being mowed for a while. I did get to do the outer yard and driveway, though, and will have plenty of clippings to collect and set aside for mulch and for composting.

Well, it’s just hit 9pm right now, and I should be going to bed. I want to start for the city quite early.

Hopefully, I’ll get some decent sleep tonight!

The Re-Farmer

[addendum: okay, this is too funny! After I hit publish, I went ahead and clicked on the AI “Generate Feedback” button. This time, I didn’t get suggestions on breaking up paragraphs or adding pictures. Nope. This time, I got suggestions for regular maintenance on equipment, better communication with my brother, and possibly getting help to deal with my anxiety over the septic issues, and ensuring good self-care. 😄😄😄]

Our 2024 Garden: a little harvest, and a little friend!

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Today turned out very different than I expected, but I’ll cover that in my next post.

My morning routine was pretty much the usual, and I even got a little harvest in.

I have what have become the usual beans – all three kinds – G Star patty pans and Forme de Couer tomatoes, but today I picked the largest of the purple Dragonfly peppers. There are quite a few more, but I’m giving them more time to ripen.

Of course, I also fed the outside cats and, as I was going around the sun room door, I found a little green friend.

This little guy was not much bigger than the top of my thumb! He was above the rain barrel, where I have a board for the diverter to rest on, this rock, and a brick on the other side, to hold it in place.

In yesterday’s sudden, severe storm yesterday morning, the brick actually got knocked right off, and the diverter almost did, too!

Gosh, I love these little tree frogs! I like all the frogs, but these ones are just too adorable!

That was about all that was usual about today, but the update will need its own post, next!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first black cherries

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While checking around the yard and garden beds for storm damage, I noticed a whole lot of the black cherry tomatoes were looking dark, so I picked a few.

I honestly don’t know if how ripe they are, but these are indeterminate tomatoes, and with so many of them on the clusters looking like this, I thought some of them had to be ripe. I’ve asked my family to let me know after they’ve tried them!

This image is from the T&T Seeds website, where I bought them from, and it is supposed to be what they look like when ripe. Not quite there, I guess! I only picked the four, though. There’s almost a dozen that looked the same as the ones I picked, so we’ll see over the next day or two, if they get dark like in the company’s photo or not.

It should be interesting to see just how many we get of these! We have only 6 plants, but they have grown so incredibly tall, up into the lilac branches about. High enough that if things start ripening near the top of the vines before frost hits, I’d need a stool or something to be able to harvest them!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a harvest before the storm!

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I was in a world of hurt this morning, after all the stuff done yesterday. The girls took care of feeding the outside cats. We gave eye baby her medication and a modified bottle feed last night, but then she went back outside. She’s getting too active to keep her in a cat carrier all night. Since we can’t wash her eye anymore – it’s not leaking, but is still insanely swollen – and no longer have eye drops, we didn’t take her in this morning. She seems to prefer kibble, anyhow. We’ll bring her in for her antibiotics in the evening, then let her back out again.

I tried to get more sleep, but got messages from my brother and couldn’t fall asleep after that. I’ll get to that part, later.

It was late morning before I got outside to check on the garden and see what could be harvested. We were supposed to get storms last night, but only got a brief rain. We were now being told to expect thunderstorms in the late morning, but very briefly. While I was in the garden, I could hear thunder in the distance.

This is what I was able to gather today.

That big G Star patty pan squash grew so much, just overnight! Yesterday, it wasn’t much bigger than the other one!

I finally picked our first yellow zucchini.

Those are all Forme de Couer tomatoes; no others were ready to pick. The beans are mostly the Royal Burgundy bush beans, which I did not pick at all, yesterday, with maybe a half dozen Carminat pole beans.

I do have to share about the enameled tub the harvest is in. It has been hanging on the wall behind the warming shelf of the wood cookstove for I don’t know now many decades. I brought it out and washed it, thinking we might need to use it for sponge baths, if we couldn’t get the septic going again.

I actually remember my mother bathing me in that, when I was a wee one. She had it on the table in the kitchen, close to the stove, with its reservoir of warm water handy. It was probably used for my late brother, too. Which would make it older than I am!

I hadn’t brought a container with me while going through the garden, and just used the bottom of my shirt to carry the produce. As I was transferring them to the tub, I could hear the thunder and figured I would top of the cat kibble outside, but just in the kibble house and sun room, so the cats would be sheltered next to food. I was in the process of putting the kibble out when the storm hit.

Hard.

We went from basically hot and muggy with no wind, to driving rain and winds strong enough for things started to get blown around, and I was half expecting branches to start breaking off! I got completely soaked in seconds!

Once back in the sun room, I made sure to tie off the outer door and partially close the inner door – normally, during the day, both are kept wide open. Cats where running all over the place, trying to find shelter. A number of kittens that normally run away from me ran into the sun room, saw me there, and panicked – but didn’t run back outside into that driving rain!

The storm has already passed, though. The system is continuing to the north east, and it looks like we got it pretty mild, compared to other places.

I’ll still be waiting a while before going back outside!

I need to go check out the expeller for the septic, out by the barn. I remembered that the septic guy had suggested that, if we still had problems, to take the cap and inner pipe of the expeller out completely, and leave it off for about a month. The grey water would build up in the outer pipe and overflow it, eventually, clearing out any collected gunk from inside the pipes that might be clogging the pipe. I was thinking of taking it out and seeing if there was any outflow.

My brother had had the same thought, and messaged me this morning about it. I’d told him about the septic guy suggesting leaving it out for a month, but my brother wasn’t too keen on that idea; that cap is there for a reason. But it might we worthwhile to do it for a few days, at least.

I was going to do that after topping up the cat kibble, thinking I had time before the storm hit.

I was wrong.

😂😂

So I will have to go out there later today, and see what there is to see!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: potato harvest, and here we go again??

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Okay, first the pleasant stuff.

My brother and his wife are still on their way here. My brother had estimated the tractor could average 20km/h. Now that they’ve been on the road for a while, my SIL thinks it’s more like 12km/h

It’s going to be a while for them to get here, still!

Before I got the messages about this, I’d gone outside to open the gate and get things done out there, so I’d be there when they arrived. One of the first things I did was harvest potatoes at the chain link fence.

On the right, in the photo, are the last of the red thumb fingerling potatoes that I could find. There were some surprisingly large ones in there, for the type of potato! Especially considering we planted the little potatoes that were left from last year, out of the bin we’d been going into throughout the winter.

The potatoes on the left are the purple caribe. These are the ones that most of them did not come up at all. Just a few in the middle of the bed, and a couple at one end. I’ve left the couple at one end, and just harvested the ones in the middle.

There aren’t a lot but, under the circumstances, it’s actually better than I thought it would be. There are some decent sized potatoes in there! Unfortunately, I damaged some with the garden fork. The soil had become quite compacted, so I had to use it quite a bit. All that means is, we have to use the potatoes right away.

No hardship there!

After harvesting the potatoes, I set the bin in the sun for now. I was going to start weed trimming around the house, in preparation for lawn mowing soon. Next to the house is a row of lilacs with the cherry trees in the middle. The cherry trees keep trying to spread through their roots, so I decided to cut those away, first.

There turned out to be a lot more than I expected!

When I got the messages about the delay, a paused for a while and had some supper.

Which is a good thing, because I was inside to hear that the septic pump was running and not shutting off again.

This happened earlier today. The filter was empty and the pump was running dry, so I shut off the power switch, primed the filter, then went outside to check the tank. I used the hose to spray the float free, and when I turned the power back on to the pump, it did not turn on.

I was expecting the same thing this time, but when I opened the tank, I could see that it was full enough to trigger the float. The pump was running, because it needed to.

I went back to the pump and turned the power on. The pump started running, but nothing was happening in the filter. It didn’t even drain through the outflow at the base. The pump was running, but nothing was happening.

I opened up the access pipe in the floor and ran the hose through – it was pretty clogged in places – but I didn’t want to run too much water through there with the tank already so full and not being emptied. It made no difference, anyhow.

I’ve left it off and sent a message to my brother and SIL, letting them know about it. I hate to even bring it up, considering how hot and exhausted my brother is going to be by the time they get here. No AC in the tractor! I heard back from them while I was writing this post. They’ve arrived at a gas station in the town my mother lives in and have stopped for a break.

After the update, I went to check on the pump again, and found the filter reservoir had drained. It shouldn’t do that. I topped it up, and started seeing … gurgling? … from the outflow at the bottom.

It shouldn’t do that, either.

Turning the power on, the pump ran, but again, no flow. The tank is not draining.

This is not good.

Once I’ve posted this, I’m going to head out to the outflow pipe near the barn to see if anything has happened there. I think the renter’s cows have been rotated away again. I haven’t seen them in a while. Which means the electric fence should be off.

We have had so many problems with this septic system! Especially this year.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons and squash and gourds, oh my!

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While doing my evening rounds, I was able to take progress photos of the melons, winter squash, pumpkins and drum gourds, using my hand as a size reference, before losing the light.

I am just amazed by how many melons we’ve got! Instagram slideshows have a maximum of 10 images. For the East bed alone, I ended up with 21 images. This, even with images having multiple melons in it. There was at least one in the bed that I found as I was taking the photos!

Here are the photos, split up into three slideshows.

Then there were the ones in the West bed. I was able to catch multiple melons in a single shot several times, so this one got split into only two slideshows.

The second slide show include the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons. We’ve actually lost one of those, but there is a new one that looks like it will make it. Plus, there are more female flowers showing up!

There are even new female flowers showing up in the winter squash beds that I’ve been hand pollinating. It’s almost impossible for them to fully mature with the growing season we have left, but I just can’t help wanting to give them a chance!

First is the East bed winter squash.

Then the West bed.

We do still have drum gourd doing their best.

There’s just the one that’s been getting bigger, but it seems to be starting to turn yellow, so I don’t know if it’s going to make it. As you can see, though, there are more female flowers blooming!

All the pumpkins, meanwhile, have turned orange.

There’s just one that still has a tiny big of green on it.

I’m also really impressed with the Crespo squash. Not only have the vines themselves had a growth spurt, with huge leaves, and the vines spreading all over – including climbing a nearby cherry tree! – but there are more squash developing!

One is definitely a loss, but we’ve got two new ones along with the very first one that is getting all nubbly. There are more female flowers that have been hand pollinated – including one on the vine climbing the cherry tree – but it’s too early to know if the pollination took. Plus, there are more female flower buds that will probably bloom in a few days.

All this, and the only thing that’s been harvested is one winter squash that broke its own stem. Nothing is ready for harvesting, though some of the winter squash are close. With the melons, some of them are supposed to be early melons and we should have been able to already harvest some of those, but with so many things almost a month behind, that hasn’t happened yet. All the melons and squash are supposed to be short season varieties, but that wet, wet spring we had really set things back.

We have only 18 days before our average first frost date.

Looking at the long range forecast, the predictions have flip flopped again, and it’s now looking like we’ll, at the very least, have a first frost in the second week of September, with highs around 15C/59F and lows as far down as 2C/36F, which can have frost – but then we are supposed to climb back up to highs of 29C/84F and lows of 13C/55F.

I’ll bet if I look again in the morning, the long range forecast will completely change again.

Meanwhile, we are under a heat warning right now. Over the weekend, we’re expecting highs of 30C/86F, with the humidex at 38C/100F. The predicted rain and thunderstorms are no longer in the forecast, though other parts of Canada are getting thunderstorm warnings right now. It’s just not supposed to reach us, anymore.

Looks like I’m going to be watering the garden in the morning, again!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: morning harvest, and a volunteer

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We’re set for another hot day today, and I thought I’d be watering the garden this morning. It seems we got more rain during the night, though, and it wasn’t needed.

I did get a decent harvest, instead!

Check it out! Our very first – and so far, only – Magda squash! I picked a couple of patty pans smaller than before, more to encourage the plants to continue blooming and producing.

I picked a few oddly small corn cobs that turned out to be ripe, but just… oddly small. There are a few green Seychelle beans, a decent amount of the Royal Burgundy bush beans, but it’s the Carminat beans that really surprise me. So few plants, and they are so productive!

There are a few chocolate cherry and Forme de Couer, and in the second photo of the slide show, you’ll see that we are FINALLY having black cherry tomatoes turning colour.

There are still some sugar snap peas being produced, and that bed where I was finally able to identify a volunteer.

A bit of greenery showed up at the very end of the bed. I thought it might be a weed, but something seemed familiar about it, so I left it. Now that it is bigger and even starting to bloom, I have been able to confirm:

It is an Aunt Molly’s ground cherry.

I am quite surprised to see it. We grew those a couple of years ago, in the spot next to the compost ring, where we now have a new framed bed with Crespo squash and Seychelle beans in it. There is another raised bed between that and the bed this ground cherry showed up in.

One of the things I was testing out with the ground cherries was whether they would easily self sow, as I’d been hearing from some people who have started to view it as a weed because it’s so hard to get rid of. The next year, though, nothing showed up. For one to now show up here is a bit of a mystery. I have no idea how it could have gotten there. It’s not like we had birds eating the ground cherries and potentially pooping the seeds out. The fruit was too thoroughly engulfed in leaves for any birds to get at. No other critters seemed interested in them, either.

I’m not going to complain, though. This is a lovely surprise, and I hope it actually gets a chance to mature and produce fruit, before our season runs out!

The Re-Farmer