harvest

Our 2024 Garden: a double harvest, and a day in the garden

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I was going to say “a morning in the garden” in the title, but no. It’s almost 4pm, and I just got inside!

As I write this, we are at our predicted high of 27C/81F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F, and I must say, I’m really feeling that 29C/84F!

We’ve had rain and even thunderstorms. It took a while, but the rain barrel by the old kitchen garden finally got refilled. We’re supposed to get more thunderstorms passing through over the next week, but the amount of rain predicted is under 5mm. That’s only 0.19inches. Barely enough to get things wet.

With the next week or so expected to reach temperatures like today, I wanted to make sure to give the garden a deep watering. In fact, I’ll probably be doing that every morning, if I am able to. The things that need the time to finish ripening also are things that need a lot of water to do so.

Before the watering, though, I wanted to see what needed to be harvested. I even remembered to bring something to carry it, instead of using the bottom of my shirt. 😄

I ended up needing a second container!

This is the first harvest.

I even spread it out on the bench, so it could all be seen. Much to the entertainment of Syndol, whose paw you can see on the left of the photo. Gouda was following me around and really wanting attention, and kept trying to bite my hands while I was laying things out, because I wasn’t petting him!

So… what we have this morning.

On the left are both Dragonfly and Purple Beauty peppers. There are a few Seychelle beans. Nothing much, but they can be added to the beans that got picked yesterday. The tomatoes are the chocolate cherry tomatoes growing against the chain link fence, and the Magda squash is from the pot in front of the house.

I was able to pick some green G Star patty pans, and they have more developing. We have a first in here, too! I picked one of the two white scallop patty pans we have growing, leaving the second one to get bigger. There are lots of flower buds, but I can’t see any other patty pans developing on those plants.

With the melons, I found the first one on the ground, its stem wound looking at me. 😄 That one had actually been growing fairly high up on the trellis, so it had fallen maybe 3 feet to get where I found it. No damage, though. Then I found two more that were ready to pick! We might almost have enough melon to start freezing some!

After gathering these, I found a small bin to use for the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden.

We have a few San Marzano tomatoes, a pretty good haul of the Black Cherry tomatoes, which look almost identical to the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes. I don’t know why, but they just aren’t getting dark like the variety is supposed to. The rest are the Forme de Couer tomatoes – including a branch that broke while I was tending another vine!

Those done, I set up the soaker hose in the bed the Forme de Couer tomatoes are in, then used the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden, the potted summer squash, and the other beds on the south side of the house.

While watering the Cholate Cherries at the chain link fence, I found a few I missed, earlier!

The mystery tomato plants I found among the potatoes by the chain link fence, plus the one in the wattle weave bed that showed up among the garlic, are both developing tomatoes now.

The lettuce with the name I never remember to spell will be going to seed soon, and I want to make sure to collect some of those.

The kohl rabi have been attached by flea beetles. This is a surprise, as I didn’t think this was the season for flea beetles! I guess the canola fields are being harvested, and the beetles are finding other things to chomp on. I still see no sign of bulbs forming on the kohl rabi stems.

I had to resist collecting more eggplants. They look so good! I want to get them more time to grow bigger, though.

The Crespo squash got extra water, and I even did the compost ring tomatoes. 😄

We will need to do something about the Crespo squash!

In the first photo above, you can see that the squash that started developing inside the A frame bean trellis is getting pretty big….

… and heavy!

If you look at the second picture in the slideshow, you can see how the bamboo stake across the top is bending quite a lot! It is there to hole the metal posts in position, and keep the netting from sagging. It’s not there to hold weight! We will need to made a large enough squash hammock to put under the squash and attach it to the metal stakes in the A frame. If we can fix the hammock to four points, that will hopefully distribute the weight enough.

By the time the south yard beds were done, a couple of hours had passed, so I headed inside for breakfast, leaving the soaker hose running in the Forme de Couer tomato bed.

When I got back outside and checked the soaker hose, it really didn’t seem to be letting out much water. In fact, I saw more condensation on the garden hose than seepage from the soaker hose! I dug down into the soil under the hose, and it was still pretty dry. So I switched the garden hose back to its regular nozzle and just watered the bed with the hose.

The inside of the catio needed to be painted so, before I went to water the main garden area, I got a bucket and a brush and scrubbed the floating catio shelves as best I could, first, so it would have time to dry.

Then it was off to the main garden.

By this time, it was 26C/79F, according to my phone, and the garden was definitely feeling the stress from both the heat and the lack of rain. According to the current forecast, we are no longer expecting thunderstorms, and the chances of getting any rain at all are below 10%, so I made sure to give them plenty of water. Basically, I have a pattern of watering slowing along one side of the bed, going around to the other side and watering it again, then repeating the process in the next bed. That way, each bed gets done twice, and any spots that get missed due to foliage or whatever gets done on the second pass.

I found a surprise in the Summer of Melons mix bed!

That’s a tomato plant!

I have no idea where it came from. The soil used to top this bed was from the pile of garden soil we bought a few years back. I don’t remember repurposing soil from a bed we’d grown tomatoes in.

Well, we’ll see how it does.

I also found new onions growing among the ones from previous years we found and transplanted, to go to seed. The seed pods on those are still quite green, so they didn’t come from there – at least not that I can tell!

As for the onions in the actual union bed, I think I’m just going to have to harvest those. The shallots, too. All but one are completely flattened, so they’re not going to get any bigger. If they stay in the ground too long, they’ll start getting mushy.

Note for future reference: must find some way to keep the cats out of the garden beds!

Which reminds me…

The last thing that got watered was the strawberry bed. It is surrounded by a net, which allowed the strawberries to recover quite nicely from being deer eaten.

Well, a deer managed to get at one corner again! It actually made a hole in the net!

They must really like the taste of strawberry plants!

I think we might have to isolate strawberries in the old kitchen garden. The deer have not gone in to eat the tiny variety of strawberries in there, and that garden would be easier to fence off from deer completely, if that were needed.

Oh, speaking of critters eating things…

While watering the winter squash interplanted with corn, I found this.

It looks like the raccoons got at the Yukon Chief corn cobs I was leaving for seed!

They didn’t get all of them, though. I won’t be pulling the corn stalks under after the squash is done for the season. Hopefully, the raccoons have decided they don’t like dry corn and will leave the rest alone! I’m actually seeing a few tiny cobs with fresh silks on them, but the tassels are all dried, so there’s no pollen for kernels to form.

So the watering is finally done for the day, and I’m taking a break. I’d like to get a bit more work done on the cat isolation shelter today, but it’s starting to get late. It might have to wait until tomorrow.

Today is Sunday, though. It’s supposed to be a day of rest from unnecessary work, anyhow!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvest firsts

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After doing my rounds this morning, I had a bit of a harvest – some planned, some unexpected!

There is what I gathered this morning.

The melon on the right is the first honeydew type we’ve harvested, having already fallen off its vine when I checked it.

I decided to harvest a few young eggplant today, even though they can still get larger. I really look forward to trying them. The last time we were able to grow either of these, we only managed to have very little ones to harvest before the frost. We enjoyed them, so I expect we will enjoy them at their bigger size, too.

The two together are the Little Finger eggplant, while the one on the other side of the green Seychelle beans is a classic eggplant. The Seychelle beans growing with the Crespo squash, have had a growth spurt and suddenly have loads of flowers. There are even a few green beans from the single plant growing with the Carminat beans.

The purple beans are almost all Royal Burgundy bush beans. There’s just a few Carminat pole beans in with them. They seem to be picking up on the blooms, too. I guess they liked the rain we finally got last night? We didn’t get a significant amount, though. I probably should have watered the garden this morning, anyway, as we got pretty hot today.

The peppers are the Dragonfly variety. Some of the pepper plants were falling over under the weight of their fruit. As I was straightening one to add more support to it, a branch broke off! Those are the Sweet Chocolate peppers, with only one starting to show a blush of colour. They should still ripen, so I left them on the branch and brought them inside, too.

I did not harvest any tomatoes, today. We harvested so many yesterday, I decided to wait. Last night, I decided to start a slow cooker tomato sauce, to use up as many tomatoes, and some other vegetables we had on hand, as I could. That included a couple of Uzbek Golden carrots, a couple of small onion bulbs, that one shallot I found pulled up, several cloves of garlic, the remaining beans we had, and even one Purple Beauty pepper that hadn’t been used yet, all chopped very fine. I added the usual salt and pepper, plus what herbs I had in my cupboard, some olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

Then I started adding the tomatoes.

I used all the San Marzano tomatoes I could find. Those didn’t yield much per tomato. They were a lot like peppers, with a hollow space in most, and the seeds clustered around the core. That did make them easy to deseed and core, but there wasn’t much tomato left after that.

All the Black Cherry tomatoes we had went in, and then I started on the Forme de Couer. Those, I just kept chopping up until I couldn’t fit any more in the slow cooker. No de-seeding or coring needed with those!

That still left us with quite a few tomatoes – and I didn’t even start on the basin of tomatoes we picked yesterday!

We kept the slow cooker going through the night, with occasional stirring. The warm setting on the slow cooker seems pretty high, so even after the time was done and it switched from Low to Warm, it continued cooking.

In the morning, one of my daughters took the immersion blender to it, and we turned it back to low. I propped the lid slightly with a wooden spoon to let the steam out, though we eventually put it on high, so we can cook it down to a thicker consistency.

My brother and his wife came out this morning. My brother was towing a piece of farm equipment that was very wide, and my SIL followed in her car with her hazard lights going. He was able to only go about 50-60 kph and sometimes, he later told me, that was too fast!

When they got here, my SIL gave me some vinyl table protectors she had been about to put into recycling until she heard I’d picked some up to put around the eggplant and pepper bed as a sort of greenhouse. I was quite happy to take them! I had a large melon for them and it reminded her to ask if I had any more tomatoes I was willing to part with.

Oh, was I happy to hear that!

I bagged up the last of the Forme De Couer I didn’t have room for last night, then brought another bag and the basin for her to take as much more as she wanted! (She can’t come into the house, as she is allergic to cats.) They’ve had so much going on this year, they didn’t really do much in the garden, and the few tomatoes they planted this year aren’t ripening yet, so I was more than happy to share the bounty! We still have tomatoes in the freezer from last year! 😄

My SIL headed home soon after, and I helped my brother secure a new tarp over the box on the dump truck. He’d already parked and unhooked the machine he’d hauled, and was planning to come back with another load on the trailer.

After he left, I was able to work on a few things I haven’t been able to get to, with all the running around I did last week, but that will be for my next post!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: the most tomatoes, yet – and a baby luffa

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Oh, what a day it’s been! I’ll cover that in another post, though.

When I got home, my daughter was doing a walkabout, checking the yard for fallen branches and whatnot. We are supposed to get rain today but, so far, it’s just been sprinkles. I hope we get more, because I’ve been holding off watering the garden for it.

Instead of rain, we’ve been getting gusts of high winds. The catio Gouda is still in for 1 more night just has the temporary plastic roof over it, and the wind was tearing it loose from the cord that’s tying it down. We ended up putting a large floor mat on top to weigh it down, then added weights to that, to keep it from being blown off. I’m so glad we did, because that plastic would have been blown right off, not long after we did it!

Gouda, however, seems to be doing okay in the catio. He’s not too pleased about being stuck in there – and the other cats are not pleased about not being able to go in and steal his wet cat food! He only has to be in there for one more night. The catio’s walls are all mesh, but he does have his box nest with a blanket in there, and is using it. The catio is also sheltered by the house on one side, and a tree on the other, and branches above.

I’ll still be much happier when the isolation shelter is done, with a fully enclosed top level.

After we took care of that, we went through the garden beds and ended up picking another melon that had fallen of its stem, and a handful of the purple pole beans.

Then we started on the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden.

They haven’t been harvested for the last couple of days.

My daughter ended up bringing over the basin from the old kitchen to hold them all!

In the basin is a few San Marzano tomatoes, a whole lot of Forme de Couer tomatoes, and Black Cherry tomatoes.

In the second photo of the slide show, I was able to zoom in for a picture of a newly blooming female luffa flower. There is one other that I spotted, but there are no male flowers at all, anywhere. The male flowers bloom in clusters, making them easier to spot. I supposed it’s possible there are some way up high and hidden among the lilac branches, but it seems unlikely.

We have a whole bunch of things we will be doing with tomatoes over the next while; one of them is going to be using the slow cooker to make a sauce. It’s big enough that we should be able to use most of the tomatoes we’ve got waiting to be processed, along with a few other vegetables we have that can be included.

I won’t be starting on that for a while, though. I need to just sit and decompress for now. Much progress has been made in getting my mother into supportive living, as she has been wanting for some time now, but my goodness, am I ever mentally exhausted right now!!

I’ll cover that in my next post. Just writing about it, as much as I can on a public blog, will be very therapeutic!

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, bee bum, catio update, and today has been insane!

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Wow. What a day it has been!

And it’s just 4:30 as I start this!

Today is our average first frost date. Thankfully, there is no sign of frost on the horizon! As I write this, we are at 27C/81F, with the humidex making it feel like 30C/86F, which I think it down from the predicted high of 28C/82F – or perhaps we haven’t reached the high, yet! Today’s overnight low is expected to be 11C/52F Starting tomorrow, and for the next week to 10 days, the overnight lows are expected to be about 15C/59F or higher, while risk of frost might not happen for most of this month at all, though we might be dipping pretty close by the last few days of September.

While doing my morning rounds, I took recordings for a garden tour video, then did a harvest.

It was while I was recording that I spotted the melon that had split overnight, so I made sure to pick that one, even though it was still tightly attached to its vine. The other one, however, turned out to have already dropped from its vine on its own!

There are a few Royal Burgundy bush beans, and a few of the green Seychelle pole beans. No Carminat pole beans today. I picked a couple of Purple Beauty peppers, then some Forme de Couer and Black Cherry tomatoes.

With today expected to be so hot, I also did a deep watering of the garden beds.

I had to be careful at times, though!

I didn’t want to disturb the bumblebees!

While I was watering in the old kitchen garden, I decided to actually taste one of the Black Cherry tomatoes. Just in case this is a type I can eat.

Nope.

Gag city. Ugh!!!

Since I was still watering, I was able to wash my mouth out with the hose. Even then, I went hunting among the tiny strawberries to find some I could eat to get the taste out of my mouth.

So far, the tiny Spoon tomatoes are still the only tomatoes I can eat fresh, without gagging. At least I can eat tomatoes after they’ve been processed into a soup or sauce or something, unlike peppers. Thankfully, it’s not an allergy, so if they’re processed in a sauce, as long as I can’t taste them, I’m fine. If they’re still in chunks or there’s enough that the taste is noticeable, I still can’t eat peppers, no matter how appetizing I find everything else about them!

At least the family likes them!

While I was back inside and having breakfast (at lunch time…) I got a lovely surprise phone call.

The roof panels I ordered for the catio and isolation shelter were in!

Since I’m going to be out for the next couple of days doing other things, today was the day to pick them up. First, we had to get some things ready, and move the catio beside the house.

I had already moved the pots with the summer squash in them to make room. My daughter and I moved the swing bench into the garage, then we cleared and swept the patio blocks.

How to carry the catio was a bit of a conundrum. There’s really no way to grip it well, except by the very bottom, at which point, it’s not very stable.

At some point, I should add pairs of handles to the frame.

My daughter had the solution, though. She went inside the catio, where she could lift the whole thing herself by gripping the frame on each side with her hands, and using her head on the roof mesh to lift from the middle! The only thing that made it difficult was the plastic that’s covering the top for a temporary roof. There was just enough of a wind to catch on it and try and blow it away. My job was just to stabilize it while she carried it over to the house.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t set the back against the house, as we wanted. Thanks to the elm tree planted in front of the house, some of the patio blocks are lifted out of place by the roots. The catio is just wide enough that the front rested over the highest point, making the whole thing wobble. We ended up rotating it so that the back now faces the concrete steps and landing by the main doors.

My daughter put food and water bowls inside while I ran into the house, because the phone was ringing.

Some of the kittens already love the catio!

As for the phone, I’ve been playing telephone tag with the guy that heads the local home care department. I had called and left a message this morning, and sure enough, this was him, calling me back. I wasn’t fast enough, and he’d left a message. So I called back right away… and left a message! I was expecting to leave for the hardware store soon, so I told him how long I expected to be. Then I remembered that I will have cell phone signal while away, so I called back and left my cell phone number.

Thankfully, he was able to call back before I left!

I told him about what was going on with my mother, including her actions that may lead her to being evicted. We tried to make an appointment to get together, but the day he suggested this week is when I’ll be taking a cat to the vet to get its nibs nipped. The week after that, he’s away, while the following week, I had only one day available for sure – that’s the week we can expect the exterminators to be coming out to my mother’s again, and I want to make sure I’m there, so make sure things actually happen, and she doesn’t get evicted. After that, I’ll be doing our stock up shopping.

Given the situation with my mother’s possible eviction if she doesn’t let the exterminator in to confirm the bed bugs are gone, he asked if I were available this Friday morning.

I said yes. I didn’t even care what time. We need to get this process started!

I’m not going to be getting much sleep this month.

So on Friday morning, I will go to his office, and we’ll do as much of the paperwork as we can. My mother will likely need to make another doctor’s appointment, but she’s now refusing to see her doctor, because her doctor is black and female. My mother did have the chest X-rays they need within the past few months, though, so we might be able to skip that. She is still supposed to get a brain scan, and that’s on the waiting list, so that would just need a confirmation.

After I see him, we’ll go to my mother’s place to go over the paperwork, explain things to her, and get her to sign the necessary authorizations. Which should include at least having home care meal preparation done. I’m hoping to convince her to add medication assist, too, to make sure she takes her meds when she is supposed to.

So that is all arranged for Friday.

Once that call was done, I headed out to my mother’s town and went to the hardware store. Before picking up the items, I got a quart of black outdoor paint for the catio, as well as galvanized steel strapping to secure the last section of mesh, next to the door hinges. I was thinking of nailing through the steel strapping, but it’s too thick, so I picked up a box of the smallest wood screws they had that will still be secure in the holes of the strapping. Finally, I picked up some screw hooks, which will secure a cat hammock in the cat isolation house. While I was paying for those, I gave my receipt for the stuff to pick up to the cashier, so she could complete the invoicing part of it (it was already paid for), then call the folks in back to let them know what was about to be picked up.

The roofing material turned out to be in an 8ft long roll, which is longer than my truck box. I rolled back the cover so that it could sit on top of the tail gate, then secured it against the tailgate with a Bungee cord.

I’m so glad I picked up that set of cords, the day we got the catio!

I also got my two bundles of wood lathe, which I hope will be the last I need for the current projects.

Once all was secure, I headed home, remembering to stop at the mail along the way, in case an Amazon order came in early, which they sometimes do. There were a couple of parcels waiting that seemed oddly shaped. They turned out to be stuff my husband had ordered elsewhere, so we’ve still got Amazon packages to come in. The store the post office is in closes at noon tomorrow, though, so I won’t be able to pick anything up until Thursday. We’ll see what time I come back from the vet with a groggy cat!

The catio will need to be painted before the roof is put on, though – or at least the top of the catio needs to be painted before the roof is put on. However, I want to paint the bottom of it, which means flipping it, so that needs to be done first.

If I get out there fast enough, I cat get that done tonight. The paint should then be cured before it gets dewy during the night. I’ll talk to the girls about painting the rest while I’m gone, tomorrow. My younger daughter is the only one that can go in, to paint the inside.

Which means, I need to finish this off, get out there and get painting!

Updates to follow – eventually.

!!

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, Button update, and my mother is determined to get herself evicted

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What a long, long day.

I’m exhausted, and will make this as sort as I can.

First up, the good stuff. Check out this harvest!

It was a sort of double harvest. I wasn’t expecting to gather anything, but that first and oldest melon finally dropped off its vine. That thing is about 9 inches across! There were also a few San Marzano tomatoes, but I didn’t have a container, and the melon made it harder to carry things. So I put them in the old kitchen, then went back to the old kitchen garden to gather was it in the second photo. I found myself picking a good handful of those tiny strawberries. Then I checked the Black Cherry tomatoes and found quite a few I could pick, hidden among the leaves. Way more that I expected!

My brother and his wife were expecting to come early to drop off another load, but I left before they arrived, so I never saw them. I went to my mother’s town, got a few things done, then got to her place nice and early. I’m really glad I did, so I could go over the letter she got from the hospital. I knew the location, but when I looked it up on Google Maps street view, across a specific parking lot from the main entrance, but I couldn’t see where the clinic entrance was.

Turns out, that’s because it was recently built in the parking lot, and street view hasn’t been updated yet.

When we got there, I had to park illegally because there were not parking spots available anywhere. Not even disabled parking. I then helped my mother up the ramps from hell to the door.

They were excellent ramps. There was just 3 levels of them, switch-backed up to the door, and that was a LOT of walking for a 93 yr old woman with busted up knees, using a walker!

I then had to leave her to register herself so I could find somewhere to park – several blocks away!

Long story short, she had some very uncomfortable tests, but she now has a diagnosis, a new prescription to try, and a plan of action.

I also found out that she has NOT been making any effort to drink more water, and the most the nurse questioned her in preparation for the tests, the more obvious it became that a lot of her problems would improve if she simply drank more water. She’s only drinking the equivalent of 1 500ml water bottle a day! She’s digging in her heals on this one, though, as she is completely convinced it has to be food that’s causing her problems. Of course, it’s the food she needs the most that she’s decided are bad for her. *sigh*

That done, the clinic was able to fax her new prescription in, and make a follow up telephone appointment in 3 months for the doctor so ask her how it’s working and adjust the dose, if needed. There are other drugs that can be tried, but this one has basically no side effects, so that’s the one he’s starting with.

On the way to her home, we stopped at a restaurant in her town, as neither of us had eaten since about 9 or 10am, and we got to the restaurant at 6pm. She needed to take her evening pills, and had brought her bubble pack for the list of medications they needed, so she went to take those – without water – before we went in.

Which is when I saw that she’s been messing with her meds again. She’s taking her morning pills, but for the past few days, skipping her evening pills. When she got this evening’s pills, she took the one that is supposed to be taken before bed at the same time. Something she promised she would stop doing.

When we finally got to her place and opened the door, we found her mail on the floor. She started to try and distract me with one envelope that she said was an invitation, but it was the other one that got my attention. It was from the government public housing department that owns her building. When I mentioned that, she tried to dismiss is as probably being about her rent.

I opened it.

It was her final notice.

She refused to allow the exterminators in her suite again, which goes against her rental agreement. This is the second warning letter they’ve sent her. If she does it again, she will be evicted.

As I was reading this to her, she basically started to laugh about it. When I tried to stress the seriousness of this, she started ranting about the “drunkard” in another unit, and how they’re not kicking him out. Then she started saying “this isn’t Russia”.

She refuses to accept how serious the consequences of her actions are.

It is so incredibly frustrating. She is her own worse enemy!

*sigh*

After reading the letter, we moved on to the information booklet she was given and I briefly showed her the sections that gave her concrete actions to do – and one of them is, drink more water! That was as much as she was up to, and I left soon after.

I’ll be back in a couple of days to drive her to another appointment. I’ve updated the family about all this, and I hope my siblings can get through to her on just how much of a problem she is causing herself. Both about the eviction warning, and messing with her medications.

There’s not much we can do about it, either. Unless a doctor declares her cognitively unfit, and she isn’t there yet, she is going to have to face the consequences of her actions.

Ugh.

Enough about that.

Throughout the day, I was also getting messages from the Cat Lady. She was taking Button to the vet. When her mother was cat sitting for them, she noticed that Button was having trouble seeing at night. His hearing isn’t back, either, so both his eyes and ears were going to be checked.

He has also had quite the growth spurt – after being dewormed three times, he’s finally putting on weight! Even the clinic commented on how big he’s getting.

They have decided that his issue is basically being developmentally delayed. His eyes are healthy, but just not where they should be for his age. He was treated for eat mites, and they believe his hearing will also recover.

That’s the good news.

The frustrating news is, the person who was going to adopt him has instead adopted another cat and is no longer interested in him. Given his vision and hearing issues, the Cat Lady wants to make sure he goes with someone who can take care of these issues until he grows past them.

Assuming he gets adopted out at all.

It was recently confirmed that a cat of theirs that was startled by a noise and disappeared, was the victim of a coyote. The Cat Lady says that Button is helping to heal her heart. She absolutely adores him.

I really hope she finds someone for Button. They already have way too many cats from us! She’s still trying to get The Wolfman adopted out, but any time someone comes over to see him, he hisses and even swipes, and runs away!

I’m just sad that the potential adopter backed out. A vet – even a large animal vet – would have been the perfect placing for Button.

So that is where we are now, and I am ready to crawl into bed and pass out.

I just know that the moment my head hits the pillow, I’m going to suddenly be wide awake! That was me last night, so I can really, really use some real sleep tonight!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvest, and identifying compost tomatoes

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While doing my morning rounds and checking the garden beds, I spotted a bit of colour among the compost tomatoes!

The first to photos look like the Indigo Blue tomatoes we grew last year. The last photo looks like the Roma VF we grew last year.

Given that we are two days away from our average first frost, I don’t expect any of these to ripen.

I did get a pretty decent harvest this morning – and even remembered to bring my big colander that I use specifically for this.

There was barely a handful of all three types of beans. At this time of year, having any at all is a treat.

There is one melon that came off its stem, but I’m not sure if that was because it was ripe. This melon was starting to soften in a spot next to the stem.

I grabbed a couple of the largest Dragonfly peppers, and the single Goldy zucchini and G star patty pan. The zucchini does have a couple more on the plant that can be harvested in a few days. The G Star patty pans are still blooming, but I’m not seeing any developing squash. The white patty pans are blooming lots, but still only male flowers.

The red tomatoes are all Forme De Couer – including the one green one. I was trying to get a red tomato, and the green one broke off, instead! The small tomatoes are the Black Cherry tomatoes.

I was in the process of watering the old kitchen garden from the rain barrel when my brother and his wife showed up with another load. While my brother was clearing the space they wanted to unload into, I was able to give my SIL some tomatoes. She chose the red tomatoes, but tried a Black Cherry, too. As we were leaving the yard, I spotted a single Chocolate cherry and gave it to her to try, and asked her if she could taste any difference. The Black Cherry tomatoes aren’t getting any darker, and look just like the Chocolate cherries, so I was curious. She didn’t find a lot of difference in the taste, except that the Black Cherry seems a touch sweeter, while the Chocolate cherry seemed a bit more acidic. She really liked both.

After that, I helped them unload, and they are on their way home. After a hydration break, I’m heading back out to finish watering the garden. We’re expected to reach a high of 24C/75F today, which isn’t too bad. Over the next couple of days, we’re supposed to hit highs of 28C/82F, and later in the week, we’re even supposed to reach 30C/86F. On the 10th, our average first frost date, we’re expected to have a high of 28C/82F, and a low of 13C/55F. Which would mean no danger of frost at all!

Looking at the long range forecast, it will be another 10 days before we start getting overnight lows below 10C/50F again. We’ve dropped down to 6C/43F a few times over the past week. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we won’t get those lows again until the last week or so of September, and won’t get risk of frost temperatures until October.

I wouldn’t be surprised if all those forecasts changed by the end of the day, but if it does, I hope it changes to warmer, not cooler, temperatures! The garden needs every frost free day it can get!

Still, I’m happy with what we have. It is more than I was expecting for this year!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first onions

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While doing my rounds this morning, I found a few tomatoes to pick. We have enough in the house now, that we can start looking into makes sauces or soups, or other ways to process and preserve them.

My initial thought was to make a big batch of tomato soup, and freezing it in individual portions. With that in mind, I picked our first onions of the year.

We planted a lot of onions, but we’re not going to get much out of them, as far as size goes. So many of them have already had their stems broken, like the ones I picked this morning. Most look like they got rolled on by cats or something. I’m not sure, when it comes to the bed that’s almost all onions in the main garden area. The ones planted in the old kitchen garden were definitely flattened by cats. They actually seem to enjoy napping on the onions! The ones planted around the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area have been crushed by the tomato branches.

My plans to make tomato soup, however, changed rather quickly. I found out my brother was on his way, along with the guy with the triple axle trailer. I ended up spending most of the day outside, and got quite a bit done in between loads.

The tomato soup will have to wait for another day. With the way things are going, I might have to get my daughters to do something with the tomatoes, instead.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, we’ve got our very first Frontier yellow bulb onions harvested.

The Re-Farmer

The day so far; a tiny surprise harvest, and why am I so tired?

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My daughter and I are home now, from visiting with my mother. I’m glad my daughter was with me, because I had to get her to drive us home!

I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

I did my morning rounds as usual, but was not expecting to harvest anything today. Instead, I gathered this tiny harvest!

Yup. Two types of strawberries!

The larger ones are the Albion Everbearing strawberries that have recovered remarkably well after getting eaten by a deer. I’ve had the odd ripe strawberry every now and then, but this is the first time there was more than one to gather. There were actually more than what’s in the photo, as I left behind a couple that were slug damaged.

The little ones are from the strawberries in the wattle weave bed that were grown from seed last year. They are still blooming, too, and there are lots of little green berries still developing. It’s a shame they don’t taste any better.

Once back inside, my younger daughter and I started getting ready to head out. My older daughter wasn’t going to make it. She’s been burning the candle at both ends, working on new commissions, and was not feeling well today.

The general plan was for us to have a sit down restaurant lunch with my mother, then go to the nature reserve. My daughter was hoping we could do a picnic instead. With my mother, it all comes down to how she feels, and what she is up to.

I remembered to bag up a few slicer tomatoes for her. Just enough for a taste, really. She’s not supposed to eat acidic foods, but small amounts, early in the day, don’t bother her. My sister usually brings my mother large amounts of tomatoes, forgetting completely that my mother isn’t supposed to eat them. This year, however, she mentioned her tomatoes did not do well, so she doesn’t really have any to give. We have so many of the Forme De Couer tomatoes, there is plenty to spare.

We packed supplies we’d need to eat outside, if we did end up doing that. Then my daughter made lots of noise, topping up the outside cat food, to lure kittens away from the truck. There was one kitten that just did not want to get out from under there! We managed to get them away, though, and soon we were off.

We left early enough to stop and pick up a birthday cake for my mother. Or, in this case, a variety of cheesecake slices! We still got to my mother’s early.

We didn’t stay for long before heading out. My mother needed to stop at her bank, first. They merged with another and she said she needed to order new checks. She’s sent a check and said it was rejected, because of the old company name.

Getting in and out of the truck was difficult for my mother, though. She tires so quickly now, too.

Once at the bank, the teller was confused about a check being returned, since all the key information was unchanged. It took a while to get the rest of the store out of her. It turns out, she did not get a check returned. She had sent the check to a grandson for his birthday. He had come over to see her, and told her it was rejected, apparently because of the date. It’s possible my mother wrote the date out in her usual mix of Polish, English, numbers and Roman numerals.

This grandson is one that never contacts her, nor returns her calls, and hasn’t since he turned 18 and got his inheritance from my late father. Now, suddenly, when there was a problem with a check she sent him, he shows up at her door? He also never returned the check, but just told her there was a problem. It seems the name being an issue was something my mother “figure out” herself. My guess is, with him there, she just gave him cash. My mother has a terrible habit of pandering to those who treat her the worst, while treating those who help her the most, quite badly.

The more the story came out, the more the teller seemed concerned. She checked, and no one had tried to cash a check in the last 3 months. She did assure my mother that she did not have to order new checks. The ones she has now are perfectly fine.

From there, she decided she was still up to a sit down restaurant. We did bring up the idea of getting take out and going on a picnic, but she acted as if she never heard.

We had an excellent lunch. My mother insisted that she would pay for it, but she never tips, so I snuck ahead and paid for it. By the time we were done eating, my mother decided she was up to going to the nature reserve. That got amended to her staying in the truck while my daughter and I explored. Not that we’d leave her by herself, but that’s what she pictured in her mind.

When we got there, I was going to just follow the roads to parking lots and we could see what we could see. I did end up taking a sign road, which turned out to be exclusively for people with disabilities. This allowed us to see parts of the sanctuary we had never seen before.

As we were going home, though, I was hit by exhaustion. The sleepy kind. It just came out of nowhere and slapped me upside the head!

When we got to my mother’s my daughter and I were going to leave right away, but my mother insisted we stop for tea and some of the cheesecake. She asked about the bill at the restaurant, and I showed her the slip that did not include the tip. She gets very angry when she sees us tip! She was very… parsimonious, shall we say, about paying me back, and actually underpaid me. Then she declared that my driving her was my birthday gift for her, as her reason for not contributing anything for gas this time. Which I normally wouldn’t care about, if I hadn’t found out she’s been practically throwing her money at people that have disowned her again. My daughters have joked that maybe we should start being mean to her, too, and she’ll start throwing money at us, too. Not that we could ever do that, but the sad thing is, it is probably true.

Overall, we managed to keep things okay during this visit. We were able to cut away from her usual racist rants, and she was only moderately insulting to my daughter about her appearance. As for why my other daughter didn’t make it, when we told her she wasn’t feeling well, my mother flat out said she didn’t believe it. 🫤 Ah, well.

She started showing us pictures and newspaper clippings that are her typical segues to more racist rants, so we cut things short, then made our escape. I could see she was getting very tired, anyhow.

Which I could completely understand.

Before we left, she gave us a couple of cards for the girls, and it turned out she was at least as generous to them, as she had been with the grandson that only shows up when money is involved.

My daughter drove us home, and I’m so glad she was there do to it. I was able to close my eyes for a bit during the drive home, at least!

Not enough to get some rest, though, so that’s what I’m about to do. Even though it’s late afternoon. I have been drifting off, time and again, just working on this blog post!

It is most definitely time for a nap!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first ripe melon harvest – for reals

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Not long ago, I found one of the Summer of Melons Blend melons had turned yellow and was looking misshapen. When I picked it up, it fell of the vine. Technically, that should have meant it was ripe, but it didn’t look ripe. We haven’t cut it open yet, though. Too much other stuff going on.

Just a little while ago, my daughter and I did a sort of Florida weave to support the rest of the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area. That didn’t take long at all. My daughter’s been working on commissions, still mostly at night, lastly, so she hadn’t seen the garden in a while. As we were looking at the melon bed near the tomatoes, I noticed one of them had turned yellow, and fallen off the brick that was keeping it from direct contact with the ground. I went to put it back, and discovered it had fallen off its vine completely!

How handy, that my husband’s giant self healing cutting mat is still on the dining table. 😄 You can see that it’s about 8 inches long.

In the next photo, you can see the stem end. That’s how it’s supposed to be with melons, when they are fully ripe.

We haven’t cut it open yet. We’ll probably do that – and the little one – this evening, so we can compare.

I can hardly wait to try it! Being part of the Summer of Melon’s blend, we have no idea what variety it is, but if we like it, I want to save some of the seeds.

September 5, and we finally have our first melon.

Five more days to average first frost.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: evening harvest, with another first! Maybe two

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I hadn’t planned on harvesting anything while doing my evening rounds.

My garden had other plans!

I ended up using the bottom of my shirt to carry everything, because I didn’t have my usual giant colander that I use for harvesting and washing the produce.

My shirt got very loaded down!

Before I got to that point, I spotted these seed heads.

While shifting and preparing the low raised beds, I spotted a small plant I recognized as a flower that shows up in our main garden area. Rather than tossing it with the weeds, I decided to transplant it into the log framed bed, with the onions I’d been finding. I had no idea if it would survive a transplant.

Well, not only has it survived, it has thrived! It has become quite large and, while the flowers are not particularly large, the seed heads are amazing! Each one of those puffs in the photo are bigger than the palm of my hand.

I don’t want it to seed itself in the raised bed, so whenever the seed heads open like this, I gather the seeds and let them loose in an area just north of the beds. I figure at least some of them will manage to germinate, in the spring.

While checking on this bed, I also spotted one of the larger melons starting to look a bit yellow. I went to pick it up and it fell off its vine, so I included it in my harvest.

Since this from the Summer of Melons mix, I have no idea if this is a variety that turns yellow like this at maturity. I suspect not, to be honest. Still, we’ll crack it open and see what it’s like inside. So I’m not sure if this is a “first” for the melons or not.

You may notice something else different in the photo.

A bright red Cheyenne hot pepper! Red from stem to tip! There was another, next to it, that is about half red. We grew these previously, in grow bags, but they stayed green. When we had frost predictions, we tried to protect them, but were late covering them up one nice. The next morning, I harvested all the green peppers that weren’t frost damaged, and we set them up in the living room. They did turn red as as they dried, eventually, but they didn’t look very palatable. So I’m very happy to have some ripening while still on their plants!

I think I could have harvested several Dragonfly peppers. Some are quite large and so dark a purple, they look black. I will wait a bit, though. I think we’d end up with too many to use quickly, so I want to be prepared to dehydrate some of them, before I bring them in.

As for the cherry tomatoes, they got all mixed up while I was carrying them in my shirt. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the Chocolate cherry and the Black cherry! I’ll have to ask the family if they can tell the difference by taste.

I’m really quite happy with the harvests we’ve been getting. I had been so sure that we’d have almost nothing to harvest regularly this summer, except maybe tomatoes, since we have four varieties. Granted, this is the sort of harvesting we should have been getting in July and early August, not in September, but I’m just so happy to have anything at all!

If the temperatures stay mild enough, though, we should have a pretty awesome harvest of winter squash and melons! I’m quite looking forward to it!

The Re-Farmer