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.
We’ve got Forme de Couer tomatoes – and from the looks of the plants, we will soon be inundated with ripe tomatoes! There’s just two San Marzano tomatoes, and I wasn’t seeing any others that looked like they were starting to ripe. There were just a few Seychelle and Carminate beans to gather this morning, but we got plenty yesterday, so that’s not surprising. I gathered more corn than I expected to. Especially considering I’d picked some yesterday, too.
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.
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!
I’m running a little short on sleep right now. Things did not turn out as planned, and I had to cancel the truck appointment for an oil change and diagnostic.
Before I get into that, though, here is this afternoon’s harvest.
I was quite pleased to have such largish harvests, two days in a row! Those are our first Forme de Coeur tomatoes in there, along with more Chocolate Cherry tomatoes. There’s a few sugar snap peas – those plants are somehow still producing! – and all three types of beans we planted this year.
I harvested in the afternoon rather than the morning, because I was busy with something else. I got the girls to water the garden for me this morning, too. The only thing I was able to do was feed the outside cats, while the girls tended to eye baby (we are out of eye drops, so I’m extra glad we have the oral antibiotics now!) before setting her outside.
The why of it needs a bit of background explanation.
You know how, when you walk into some stores, there are people who come up to you offering applications for credit cards?
I’ve said no to these for years, but one recent trip to Canadian Tire, I figured, what the heck. I’ll apply – while fully expecting to be turned down.
Much to my shock, I was approved for a Canadian Tire Mastercard.
It took about a week or more for the physical card to arrive, and then there was the process of activating it, getting things set up and so on. This meant I also got quite a few emails from Canadian Tire, with activation notifications, approval for this, set up for that, all along with the usual emails I get from them for sales and surveys and “rate your purchase” stuff. Some of these emails didn’t need to be addressed immediately and were set aside for later.
For those who don’t know, Canadian Tire has its own currency. You used to be able to get Cdn Tire money of various denominations. You could use the bills – legal tender recognized only by Canadian Tire – on your next shopping trip, or donate them to charity in bins that were set up by the exits.
Eventually, they switched to digital versions and you could collect your reward money by using a card of key fob with a bar code on it, just like other loyalty cards out there. Over time, it became the “Triangle” rewards card, which could be used at a number of different stores, and use the collected digital currency to buy things at those stores. When it comes to the Cdn Tire Mastercard, using it allows for collecting the digital money anywhere it gets used. I already had a Triangle card, but we don’t shop at Cdn Tire all that often, and don’t shop at the other stores at all, so the reward cash doesn’t accumulate quickly.
Costco takes Mastercard only.
For the amount we spend there, it would actually be practical to use the Cdn Tire card and collect the rewards cash faster. If we save up the digital money long enough, we could use it to make major purchases.
As long as I can avoid the credit card trap, of course!
Anyhow, loyalty points and rewards is part of the whole thing, and some of the emails I got were about that.
Well, yesterday evening, I had gone through some of the older emails from Cdn Tire I had set aside and followed through with them.
I blame missing what should have been obvious on the fact that it was almost midnight.
Later, while getting ready for bed and in the middle of my devotions, one of those emails popped into my head.
Something didn’t seem right.
I tried finding the deleted email on my phone but couldn’t, so I went onto my desktop to go through my email. My computer is on all night these days, playing purring sounds to sooth eye baby during the night, so it was already up and running.
I found the email.
I went through it, checked some things, but couldn’t be 100% sure there was an issue. My card information, however, was now associated with it, and I was now 99% sure it was a problem.
It was past 1am by this time, and they don’t have 24 hour customer service.
After trying a few times and realizing I wouldn’t get through to anyone until 7am local time, I used the automated system to report my card as stolen. It was the only option I had.
By the time I got back to bed to finish my devotions, it was about 3am.
I didn’t sleep much, and was wide awake by 6am.
I’d already messaged the family about what happened, to be read whenever they were able to. I also sent a text to the garage to cancel the oil change and diagnostic, since I had wanted to use the card for that.
My daughters were both up, so they took care of things I normally would have.
Meanwhile, I logged onto my account and saw that the last 4 digits they make visible on the website were different. I already had a new card number assigned.
To call in, however, the first thing the automated system asks if for the 16 digit card number, then the PIN, before going into the other options. How would that work now that the number on my card was no longer valid?
I also already got an email confirming the card was reported stolen, with a number to call if I hadn’t actually done that. If the usual number didn’t work, I could resort to that one.
Well, it turns out I didn’t need to.
Once I called and gave the 16 digit number, the process was completely different, and was immediately sent to a customer service rep.
Which was exactly what I wanted!
As soon as I heard the operator’s voice, I could tell she was bracing herself. That number would have been flagged as stolen, so right away I said, I reported my card as stolen during the night.
I then explained that my card was not physically stolen, but the number probably was, then explained about the email. The other thing I wanted to do was confirm the pending purchases I’d made yesterday as being legitimate. She spent some time helping me with all that, then forwarded me to the fraud department for the rest.
The guy I spoke to confirmed, that email was not from them. He made sure to tell me I’d done the right thing by reporting the card as stolen so quickly. With these phishing scams, they tend to rack up the charges very quickly. He was able to look up the old number and confirm that no purchases had been attempted, but if I had waited until I could talk to someone directly, he is positive there would have been fraudulent charges.
He then confirmed that the process to get a new physical card for me was started. The request would get sent to where they stamp the cards should get to that location today or tomorrow, and he figures a new card will be mailed by Friday (today is Wednesday). It takes 7-10 business days for the card to arrive in the mail – and next weekend is Labour Day weekend, so it might take about 2 calendar weeks for it to arrive.
Which is fine. The main thing I wanted to confirm is being able to pay off the card at the end of the month, since it’s possible the new card won’t arrive until well after. He checked my billing cycle, and there is no concern about anything being late. Plus, I had already set the card up as a payee with my bank. If I make a payment before the new card arrives, it will automatically be diverted to the new number. Once the card arrives, I can just edit the payee information.
All of that went much more smoothly and quickly that I feared! So quickly, I had to wait until the garage opened at 8 before I could phone.
When I got through and told him I had to cancel, I mentioned I’d sent a text during the night, and our mechanic was glad I phoned, because he hadn’t had a chance to look at any of the texts that came in during the night.
By the time I was done all that, the girls were still outside, watering the garden. My younger daughter had not been able to sleep last night at all, so once they were back inside, they both soon went to bed. As for myself, I only took the time to grab some food, get some laundry started, then went to bed myself.
Funny. I slept much better this time!
By the afternoon, we already hit our predicted high of 27C/81F. I knew there would at least be tomatoes ready to pick, so went out to do the harvest and found myself picking quite a bit more than expected. Even with the morning watering, everything in the garden was all doopy from the heat and humidity!
I did have another surprise, while picking pole beans in the main garden area.
A car stopped on the road and gave a bit of a honk. Then someone came out and started calling out “hello”.
With the lilac hedge in the way, I wasn’t sure if this was someone calling to me, or thinking there was someone at the property across the road from us. No one lives there, but the owners are there frequently.
So I made my way through the overgrown area that’s too tall to mow, to try and see what was going on.
It turned out to be my husband’s prescription delivery! It was a different driver and he was unfamiliar with the area. When he saw me in the garden, he stopped on the road to see if he was in the right place!
I wasn’t expecting the delivery for several more hours!
He then drove around and I met him at the gate. It was my husband’s insulin, so I had to make sure that got into the fridge before going back to the garden!
So… yeah. Today was not at all as planned! But things worked out in the end, and that’s the important part.
Oh, and before I forget…
I’m happy to say that my sparkly hat that the cats got all stinky, survived going through the washer and drier! It’s not meant to be washed that way. I’m sure using the lingerie bag helped.
I’m quite pleased, as it’s my favourite hate!
Since I wasn’t going out today, I did get some more done on the cat isolation shelter, but that will be for my next post!
Today, we were expected to reach a high of 28C/82F, so I wanted to make sure to give the garden a deep watering early in the morning, before things got hot. I’m glad we did, because we seem to have reached 30C/86F, with the humidex closer to 35C/95F!
I’m so glad I remembered to grab ice packs before I headed out today.
Anyhow…
After the garden was watered, I did some harvesting, and this is what I gathered.
There was a single patty pan ready to harvest. I mightily resisted picking the one Magda squash we have right now, but I decided to let it get bigger. There’s one zucchini that looks like it’s going to reach a harvestable size soon, too.
There was a nice handful of the Royal Burgundy bush beans (bottom right corner in the bin, as well as the longer Carminat pole beans. There was a single San Marzano tomato to pick, plus a whole two Chocolate Cherry tomatoes – the first of the season! I went ahead and harvested a few more Uzbek golden carrots as well. I think the next harvest will be the last of them, except for the ones gone to seed.
I always second guess myself when it comes to harvesting corn. I’ve heard it said, you can tell they’re ready when the silks are dried up, but I’ve harvested them at that stage and found immature cobs. It’s also suggested to tear through the husks to actually see the kernels, but if the cob isn’t ready, that leaves it with an opening where moisture and insects can get in.
This morning, I found one corn stalk broken at the cob, as if something tried to pull it down. Raccoons are notorious for cleaning out an entire corn patch at peak ripeness, but I don’t think a raccoon did this. I would expect more damage from a raccoon. Still, since the cob was above the broken stem, I shucked it and it was perfectly ripe.
Yes, I ate it raw, and it was deliscious.
So I went ahead and picked more that I thought might also be ripe. Happily, when I shucked them at the compost pile, I found they were all ripe. I ended up putting them in the oven to roast along with something else, and they were absolutely fantastic!
Yukon Chief is definitely a variety worth growing again!
I have a different short season variety to try next year, so we’ll be able to compare, but with how super short the Yukon Chief’s growing season is, it already has an extra point going for it. Once we decide on a variety we like that grows well here, we will start saving seeds. By then, we should have more space to dedicate to growing corn, too.
It’s nice to finally be having some decent sized harvests this year! I honestly did not thing we would be getting any bush beans at all, so to have both bush and pole beans to harvest is just icing on the cake!
There were some pretty decent sized bulbs in there!
They got trimmed and strung up and are how hanging in the garage with the garlic harvested from the bed with the Forme de Coeur tomatoes.
Speaking of which, I spotted a couple of those, starting to turn red, too! Finally!
Still nothing on the black cherry tomatoes, though.
While doing my evening rounds, I spotted a few things I could probably have harvested, but I decided to leave them for tomorrow morning.
While I didn’t have to water the garden this morning, I definitely will have to do it tomorrow morning. Today, we reached our high of 27C/81F, but the humidex definitely put us above 30C/86F. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 28C/84F, with not even a hint of rain in the forecast – and it’s supposed to continue like that for the next week to ten days.
What I found interesting when I did my evening rounds in the garden was that so many things were noticeably bigger – particularly the squash plants, both summer and winter – just from this morning! The Crespo and G Star squash are getting huge!
Now, if we can just keep this up through at least half of September, that would be good… 😁
Ha! I just checked the long range forecast. For a while there, around September 10 – our average first frost date – it was looking like we’d be getting pretty chilly, with lows of only 4C/39F on that day. Now it’s saying that we should be hitting 30C/86F on the 10th, with a low of 15C/59F! As it stands now, we might not get first frost until October.
Of course, I expect that forecast to change a few times over the next while, but still, there’s hope for the garden!
We’re expecting heat but no rain for the next while, so it looks like I’m going to be back at watering the garden every morning again. I worked on that while the girls took care of eyes baby, cleaning and treating her eyes, then feeding her cat soup with the modified kitten baby bottle. That made a mess, of course, so she was looking really bedrabbled when I finally saw her outside!
While I was watering, I saw a little green friend on the grape leaves.
While watering the G Star pattypan squash, I found a squash I’d somehow managed to miss seeing before. It’s a bit bigger than I would normally let it get, but it’s still in the tender stage. I got a pretty good handful of Carminat beans and a few Dalvay shelling peas.
There was one Yukon Chief corn stalk that didn’t survive being broken by the wind, and it had a tiny little cob on it. I went ahead and shucked it and, small as it was, it was ripe. I ate it raw, and it was quite tasty. So I took a chance and harvested the ripest looking cobs I could find. Only one probably could have used a few more days on the stalk. I decided to harvest some of the Uzbek Golden carrots, and even found a few Seychelles beans in the bed with the Crespo squash. I’m happy with the carrots I picked this morning. There isn’t much left in the bed, including the two that have gone to seed. I really hope we’ll have the space to plant more carrots next year.
I was happy to see that we FINALLY have ripening chocolate cherry tomato. Just two, really, and one looked almost ready to pick, but I left it for now.
With having such small harvests for the past while, most have not had enough to make it worth including in a meal, so we’ve been setting some things aside. We had enough that, with this morning’s harvest, I decided to use it all up. I was inspired by A Jeanne in the Kitchen’s Low Country Boil. We had no seafood, and I just used what we had. Except the peppers, since I can’t eat those without gagging for some reason, but we did have a couple of little San Marzano peppers I could use. I can’t eat fresh tomatoes, either, but I can eat them when they are cooked or processed.
I ended up using half a package of bacon, half a package of fresh sausages, frozen onions from our garden last year, carrots, beans, shelled and sugar snap peas, the patty pan squash, the corn chopped into chunks (not a way I would normally cook corn on the cob), some Russet potatoes we bought that need to be used up, and several cloves of fresh garlic that couldn’t be hung for curing with the others. I think that’s everything. Some of this was browned before adding water.
For seasoning, I used some of the truffle salt we still have left, freshly ground pepper, ground thyme, dried parsley, a couple of vegetable bouillon cubes and a touch of turmeric. I was digging through the fridge and spotted some jars of seafood sauce and oyster sauce, so I went ahead and added some of that to the liquid, too.
I’m quite happy with out it turned out, and it made an excellent brunch.
It will now make an excellent… supper, I guess. I got busy working in the garage and am now realizing I haven’t eaten in way too long.
I’ll post about the progress on the isolation shelter next, but first, I need to eat!
Well, the predicted rain did start last night, and it’s still raining now.
Sort of.
It’s a very light, barely there sort of rain. I’m just hoping it keeps up long enough to actually water the garden. It’s actually pretty much stopped right now, but it’s supposed to start up again this afternoon – quite different from the prediction of rain all morning that I was looking at last night.
This time, I actually picked sugar snap peas. The plants are well past their prime, and usually I just find a few to snack on in the morning, but today there was enough to actually bring some in – after I’d already eaten a few. 😉 There was a single green Seychelle bean ready to pick, plus a few Carminat, and one Purple Beauty pepper was ripe.
I was also happy to see the first blooming Magda squash blossom, though at this stage, it’s just male flowers. The Black Cherry tomatoes are starting to get too tall for the lilac they’ve grown into to hold them, so I’m going to have to find a way to support the vines while still keeping them in reach for harvesting. Not a problem I ever expected to have! We’ve never had tomatoes that grew this tall before!
I get the Farmer’s Almanac daily newsletter and caught a bit of their long term forecast for the fall and winter. They’re predicting a warmer than usual fall for some areas – a range that includes where we are. I hope they’re right. Even now, as I look at the local long range forecast into September, the predictions for the overnight lows has changed towards warmer temperatures. We shall see. With how far behind so many things are – and certainly not just for us! – I’ll take very frost free night we can get!
It’s sort of pins and needles time for gardeners – and a lot of farmers, too – at this time of year.
The Re-Farmer
(addendum: I’ve been using WP AI assistant to “generate feedback” pretty regularly, just for a lark. It tends to make the same suggestions, over and over. Clearly, it can’t tell that I’ve got Instagram images embedded in my posts, because it’s constantly recommending I use images or video. 😄😄)
After I did as much as I could on the cat isolation shelter build, I finally got around to harvesting some of our garlic. In particular, I wanted to get the garlic that was sharing a bed with tomatoes. The tomatoes are getting so huge and bushy, the garlic was barely visible!
The challenge was to find them and dig them out without breaking any tomato plants!
Not all of the garlic planted there in the fall emerged, but I think I found all the ones that did. The soil was surprisingly compacted, and the head buried much deeper than I expected. I could actually hear the wood on the handle of my digging tool making cracking noises if I went to deep, trying to loosen the soil.
Unfortunately, when I got them all out, I discovered they were just crawling with black ants!
After trimming the stems, most of them got strung up and are now hanging in the garage. Normally, I would have hung them under the market tent, but that broke over the winter. Right now, the garage is the only place that’s out of the elements, but still has air circulation. Since I’m using it as a workshop right now, I can at least be sure they won’t be forgotten about!
Before I headed in for the evening, I finally went out and took progress photos of the winter squash, melons, pumpkins and gourds. It’s been quite a while. The last time I normally would have done it, I did our garden tour video, instead.
If you want to see how they looked earlier, you can visit these links.
It’s now the 14th, so there is quite a lot of difference since I last posted photos. We lost a few things, and some look like they will also be losses, but I also found more melons, including a couple I found just this evening, while taking the photos!
With that in mind, I will start with the melon beds. First, the east bed. There were so many, I had to divide the photos between two Instagram slideshows.
This Summer of Melons mix is really prolific – though with where we are in the growing season, it’s likely we’ll only be able to harvest the earliest varieties, whatever they are. The mid and late varieties are unlikely to have enough time left to fully mature.
Then there is the west bed of melons, which also had to be split up between two slideshows.
In the above slideshow, you can see the only two Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons we’ve got right now, and the older one is dying off. The plant has more female flower buds and is blooming like crazy, but it’s probably way too late. While I was giving my sister a tour of the garden, she was telling me things are late in her garden, too. She’s not growing melons or squash this year, but she says her tomatoes are way behind. She barely even has tomatoes forming right now! That wet, wet spring we had has really affected so many people’s gardens, all over the province.
There are other drum gourds on the vines, but it’s still too early to tell if they were well pollinated. There are lots of male flowers, but I haven’t been seeing the female flowers when they first bloom, so I haven’t been able to do any hand pollinating.
Next is the east winter squash bed. This one has the most squash developing on it.
It looks like we’ve got two surviving squash developing. I’m seeing at least one more female flower bud, but it’s too early to know if it’ll be a survivor. Again, we’ll see if they have enough growing season left. These are supposed to get very large.
I’m kinda regretting not watering this morning, even though the forecast is now more sure about us getting rain overnight. Looking at the weather radar, the trajectory of the weather system has changed, so it no longer looks like it’s going to go right past us. Instead, it’s heading towards us – and looks like it’s going to split in half and maybe miss us on two sides, instead of one! Still, we’re supposed to be getting right starting tonight, and continuing through to mid afternoon tomorrow. We shall see what actually happens!
Anyhow… that’s the status of things right now. I’m quite happy with things so far. In all honestly, considering how many winter squash we planted, I would have expected more – I don’t think there are any hiding under the leaves anywhere that I haven’t spotted. It does seem like some plants have more than one squash developing, while others have none at all. In the future, when we have our permanent trellises built – trellises strong enough to hold winter squash like these! – it’ll be easier to see, one way or the other. The squash in this Wild Bunch Mix really want to climb, too!
I’m quite impressed by how many melons we’ve got developing! They have a trellis to climb in one bed, but seem to prefer to sprawl on the ground, instead.
As late as things are, I’m happy with the Crespo squash, too. Last year, we had four struggling plants that ended up being baked in the sun in there location, and only one small, immature squash to harvest. It still made good pie!
They are definitely doing better in the new bed I made for them this year.
Lots to keep in mind for when we plant any of these again, in the future! Every year is a learning experience, and I don’t expect that to ever stop. That’s part of what makes gardening so fun!
The Re-Farmer 