I started with the parsnips and took extra effort to try and get entire roots out, without them snapping on me. I managed it with most of them. Interestingly, the widest ones were also the shortest ones.
Then I harvested some carrots from both the rainbow mix row, planted earlier, and the orange carrots, planted later. There is a definite size difference!
It blows me away that we are able to harvest anything at all, in November. I quite like having a longer growing season, even if it turns out to be just for one year!
We have a change of plans for tomorrow. My SIL and her closest friend – someone my in-laws considered another daughter – have been packing up my FIL’s apartment, since he will not be going back. Some things will be divided up, but the rest needs to be sold or gotten rid of somehow. They’ve asked and we’ve mentioned a few things we would like to have, but I also let them know that if they have things no one else will take, or they cannot sell, they can be brought here. Nothing will go to waste, and we can store things here until someone else that wants them has room.
This morning, we learned that a load is coming out here tomorrow. Aside from what we asked for (which isn’t much), I have no idea what is being brought over. We don’t know what time, either, so my daughter and I will stay home and do the small Walmart trip we were planning, the day after. Unless she comes really early or something. It gets dark pretty early this time of year, and I don’t want to do be doing any night driving. Too many deer.
Today, my daughters got some progress outside. The last 4 haskaps have been planted, and all 144 of them got a deep watering.
The garlic bed also got a deep watering, before a straw mulch was added. If all goes well, the garlic should start growing under there, before the ground freezes.
Over time, the haskaps need to be mulched, too, but with so many, that will be done slowly, over time.
I was able to head outside for my daily walkabout, before things got dark. Of course, I checked on things and did what little I could. I even remembered to move the trail cam and it’s stand away from our sign at the corner of the property, since we no longer have to worry about the sign being vandalized.  I’m hoping to find a way to use the stand to hold the solar critter cam to monitor the isolation shelter, once it’s set up under the kitchen window for the winter.
While looking at where my daughter planted the last haskaps, I noticed the spade was forgotten, so I took it to the sun room.
Where I promptly startled four skunks
!!!
I left the sun room, since the cats and I were blocking the exit. Three left.
One stayed and looked like it was settling down for the night. 😆
There’s really no way to persuade it to leave from there. Too many things between it, and the door. Namely me and swirling cats, wanting their evening feeding!
So I took care of that and left the skunk alone.
Aside from that, I’ve spent most of my day in the cat free zone, doing little crochet projects. I’m trying to use up two colours of mill end cotton I’ve had for quite some time.  We now have more dish cloths and coasters, and I’m working on another bowl.
I’m hoping to have a better night tonight. Last night, I went to bed early, and promptly became wide awake. At one point, I gave up trying to sleep, got up and made another pot holder in Tunisian stitch, because why the heck not? I’d love to do more than drift off and wake up, over and over, all night again, though.  Not something surgery or recovery related, as far as I can tell. In that respect, things are going quite well.
Normally, tomorrow would be our second stock up trip to Costco in the city. That will be delayed. If we need anything over the next week or so, we can make a short trip into town.
This afternoon, when temperatures were at least a bit above freezing, I headed out to see my daughters’ hard work.
Wow.
Because these last haskap transplants are so much smaller, with tiny, over crowded root balls in tiny little pots, they are harder to see. So I marked every one of them with a garden stake, then raided our recycling bin for plastic bottles to put on top of them. Aside from improving visibility, they should rattle in the wind and potentially startle away critters.
The first image is the main “plot” where my daughter added three more rows of 10 haskaps.
The next two images are different views of the ones she planted around the fruit trees and the two haskaps we’d planted two summers ago.
The last image is the four that were left, because it was too dark to keep going. They will be planted where our original three haskaps are – the ones that have not been doing well at all, because the cross pollinating verities don’t bloom at the same time, and one of them just isn’t growing.
I counted a total of 140 transplanted haskaps, plus there are the four left to do.
There had been 95 already in the ground. My daughters – mostly my younger daughter, as her sister could come out only after she finished working on commissions – planted 45 haskaps last night.
That makes for a total of 144 haskaps that my brother and SIL managed to acquire, plus the 5 we already had previously.
Wow.
If they all survive – which is highly unlikely, given the state some of them were in – that makes for a grand total of 149 haskaps for our food forest.
Wow.
For the four of us, just a couple would be enough for personal use. Maybe 5, if we wanted to do really get into making preserves of some kind with them.
At least it would be, if we had any that produced. Of the original three, only the “Mr. Haskap” has been even remotely healthy, the first to bloom, and finished blooming before the “Mrs. Haskap” I got at the same time even got into full leaf, never mind bloom. The third one, a “Mrs. Haskap” purchased the following summer, remains stunted and exactly the same size as when we planted it, some 3 or 4 years ago.
The two that we got at the homesteaders event, planted in a much better location, had their second summer this year and didn’t seem to get any bigger at all. Much like our highbush cranberry, that have not gotten any bigger since we planted them at the same time as the silver buffalo berry that is doing so well.
If even a quarter of these haskaps survive and produce, we could potentially have enough to sell at markets within a couple of years.
If they survive and produce.
With how root bound they were, they have a rough start already. For now, though, we will focus on watering them often, even though none of them have any leaves left, to give the roots every chance to grow and establish themselves at least a bit, before the ground freezes.
Which, if the long range forecast is to be trusted even slightly, will be at least another 3 weeks, if not until December. As long as we still have daytime temperatures above freezing, the ground should only freeze at the surface overnight, and mostly thaw during the day.
My daughter really busted her butt last night! By the end of it, she was getting chilled and starting to cough, so she slept in today, and has been taking care not to come down with a cold or get sick, as much as she can.
In a couple of days, we will be doing our first stock up shopping trip. I am still banned from driving, and my daughters don’t want me to travel too far. For the things we need, though, we at least need to do a Walmart trip, so we are planning to go to the one in the smaller, closer city. They’ve expanded, but still don’t have the inventory the big city locations do, but we should be able to get what we need. There’s also a Canadian Tire across the street, where we can get our litter pellets.
Normally, on the last business day of the month, we would do our Costco shopping. That one will be postponed, probably by a couple of weeks. Yes, my daughter can do the driving, and we don’t have to worry about weird parking issues or insane city driving conditions, but it’s also about recovery and mobility for me. My 6 week recovery period is over at the end of November, so by December, we should be back to our normal driving and errands.
I am so looking forward to spring, when I can physically do the things I wasn’t able to do all this past summer!
… and to seeing how many haskaps survived the transplanting and winter conditions.
I am having another good recovery day today. Finished off a crochet bowl, but haven’t started anything else, yet.
It was warmer today, so when I headed outside to walk around, I decided to stay out and give the haskaps a deep watering.
About 5 minutes in, there was a sudden clap of thunder.  No rain. No lightning. Just thunder.
As I was working on the very last row, there was more thunder, and it started to rain.
There had been no rain in the forecast for today.
It was just a light right, but I headed inside, anyhow. Which is when my younger daughter told me her sister had just gone out to look for me. We used different doors and missed each other. 😆
I went to the door to get her, and it was pouring rain. My daughter came in, completely soaked!
The rain stopped as abruptly as it started. Then did it again.
All I can say is, it’s better than snow. Which might be happening to the north of us, this weekend. We have rain in the forecast, but the northern communities might be getting a blizzard. !!!
Oh, and we’re also looking at a high of over 20C in a cooler of days.
