heat wave

Tree planting done

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Technically, today is a touch cooler – we hit a high of 31C/88F this afternoon, and it’s just starting to slowly drop for the evening.

It didn’t feel cooler, even though I was done well before we reached the high of the day. I started off around 6am and it was already getting hot. I have no idea what the humidex was, but I was definitely courting with heat stroke by the end of it.

It is, however, done.

First, the unboxing.

The Manchurian walnut wasn’t even visible until the packaging was unwrapped!

The package came with planting instructions, which included making sure NOT to leave any of the sawdust around the roots, and to let the roots soak for about an hour before planting.

While those were soaking, I got my supplies together to do the Manchurian walnut first. I got a wheelbarrow load of wood chips that I hoped would be enough for all the trees (that old pile of wood chips is decomposing nicely) and the wagon was loaded with watering cans, the tree bucket and a piece of thick cardboard as part of the mulch.

For the Manchurian Walnut, I chose to plant it where we have a row of Black walnut. Last year, one of them simply disappeared. Not just the leaves nibbled at. The entire stem, gone.

Since that area had already been worked and marked, I figure it would be at least a bit easier to prepare the hole, too.

Well, mostly.

There were the usual small rocks, but I also had to cut away a substantial root the wasn’t there when I planted the Black Walnut seed! The protective collar turned out to be absolutely jammed with roots, and it took quite some time to clear it. With that in mind, when I replaced the collar later, I set it just into the ground, not as deep as it had been when I planted the black walnut seed. But that was much later.

When I’d dug the hole before, I’d found some rocks that got used to form a ring around the planting area before mulching with grass clippings that were so long, they were basically hay. I set those aside along with more that the frost/freeze cycle had heaved up. The top soil is not very deep and I was soon hitting the gravel/sand/clay layer and loosened that up as much as I could before returning enough soil to make a planting mound, as per the instructions. I also used the protective collar as a template to cut an opening in the cardboard that would be laid down under the wood chips.

Once planted, it got a watering can full (2 gallons) of water. Then the cardboard and protective collar was put in place. Then a thick mulch of wood chips and more watering (another 2 gallons).

Last of all, I set the rocks around the inside of the mulch ring in such a way that I hope they will help direct water flow towards the middle. Since I still had the grass clipping mulch handy, I set that around the outer edge of the wood chips.

In this location, the Manchurian walnut will need at least weekly deep watering, unless we get a decent amount of rain. The surviving Black walnut are showing leaf buds and I should be watering them, too.

But not quite yet.

Next job, planting the Blue Basket Willow.

These were going to go much further from the house, beyond the outer yard. There is a low area that forms a shallow pond in wet years, and towards which our septic ejector drains. The renter’s cows are rotated into this quarter for pasture, so I needed to make sure they wouldn’t stomp all over the new trees! Not that I can 100% protect them from cows, but I can at least make it less likely.

Before heading out, I cut five sections of the heavy cardboard and five metal T posts to bring along. The area I was going to work in was so round, once I got the wagon through the outer yard fence line, I had to carry the watering cans and soaking bucket over, so as not to lose all the water to sloshing.

The first two pictures are where I decided to plant. This low area had been fenced off at some point, and the remains of fencing are still there. I wanted it to be further away from the existing willows that are way too close to our ejector system (the roots are likely why we had to replace it, a couple of falls ago, and the new ejector is further from the trees).

The bit of fence still there will protect the trees from the cows on one side, and the T posts should somewhat protect from the other. It will be some time before the cows are rotated to this quarter, and the willow should have time for their roots to be established before it becomes a concern.

I normally would have planted trees a minimum of 6′ feet apart, but these are meant for coppicing. I used the 5′ long T posts to mark a row in the grass roughly 5′ apart, plus a few inches.

This area has standing water in places, barely visible in the tall grass. Where I planted, it is slightly more elevated, but still very wet. Once I marked out the distances, I cleared the tall grass within a circle with my gloved hands and used that as a guide for where to shovel out a circle of sod, before digging deeper.

The first couple of holes weren’t too bad, but when I got to the third one, I hit so many rocks, so close to the surface, I thought I would have to dig somewhere else. In another hole, there were so many larger rocks, I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough soil left to return to the hole!

I got it done, though, and set the rocks along the old fence, out of the way.

Then I returned the sod in chunks, upside down, to create a planting mound. This area is so wet, water was starting to accumulate in the bottom of the holes.

The holes prepared, I planted all five of the willow and gave them a surface watering. Just one watering can’s worth, more to settle the soil around them.

Next, I cut holes in the middle of the cardboard, with a slice to the edge so I could slide the cardboard around the stems, adding the T posts beside each one in the process. They now each have the fallen fence protecting them on one side, and the T posts on the other.

Then the remaining wood chips got added for mulch. It’s nowhere near enough. I’ll have to get another load and add more later.

Last of all, I used the second watering can and what was left in the soaking bucket to moisten the wood chips.

One important thing about planting these in this location. I will not need to water them weekly. If anything, they are more at risk of drowning that drying out. At least for now. If things dry up over the summer, then I might have to water them. Which would be a pain, because the water line to the barn was shut off decades ago, when my parents no longer had cows.

By this time, it was coming up on 10am and the heat was a real danger. I put everything but the spade back into the wagon and took that to the “gate” at the fence line by the barn. With the wheelbarrow, though, I took the time to grab some of the rocks I’d dug up, plus a few more loose rocks along the way. I let the spade, just in case, but never needed to use it.

I had pulled the garden hose as far into the outer yard as it could reach, in case I needed to refill watering cans. Instead, I took the wheelbarrow over and started filling hosing the rocks down to get the worst of the mud off and let them soak for a bit. Then I brought the wagon to the inner hard fence before going back, dumping water out of the wheelbarrow, and refilling it.

The above picture is after the first water was dumped off and it was getting refilled.

This also allowed me to use the water to cool myself down. Including soaking my hat before putting it back on again. The heat was really brutal and I was starting to feel the warning signs telling me I needed to get inside, fast – and we hadn’t even reached the high of the day, yet!

I left the wheelbarrow where it was for the while. The rocks will be taken to the gate area, were they will be used to make the wall of what will be a flower bed at the base of my mother’s angel statue.

Then I went inside and, as soon as possible, crashed on the couch near the AC for at least 4 hours. I hadn’t done the morning watering in the garden, so my daughters took care of that for me.

Meanwhile, my brother and SIL had come out yesterday. Just as I was setting up, they headed out with their RV that they found someone to sell for them. They got back around the same time I was getting up, and now I see my brother has their zero turn mower out and is mowing in this heat!!

The grass is getting so very long right now, but it’s just been too hot. When it’s cooler in the morning, the grass is too wet. For the inner yard, I was going to break out their push mower that they’ve set up for us to use, and mow around the edges of the yard, then use the riding mower they have for me to use, to do the rest. My brother’s weed trimmer is also available, and I just brought his case of batteries for it out of the house where they were stored for the winter.

It’s past 5pm as I write this. It’s still 28C/82F out there, with the humidex at 31C/88C.

It’s hard to believe that, just a week or so ago, we were still getting snow!

I was supposed to do a dump run today. They’re open until 6pm on Saturdays, but I’m simply not up to it. My daughter was willing to do the driving, but I’m still groggy and dizzy. It’ll have to wait.

Again.

*sigh*

The important thing is, the trees are planted!

Now we just have to keep them alive…

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: preparing to direct sow

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First up, I’m happy to share this photo of Havarti.

After how bloody and swollen he was after his spay yesterday, then disappearing when the cleaned out isolation shelter was dry and ready to hold him for the night, I honestly would not have been surprised if he didn’t make it. Instead, when I came out to do the feeding this morning, there he was, mostly cleaned up, among the cats swirling under my feed, very eager for food!

I just came back from the evening feeding. He is doing very well – but it’s so hot out there, most of the food I set out this morning was still uneaten! No appetites in this heat, that’s for sure. They have plenty of water available, and plenty of shade, and we have cat puddles all over the place.

One of the things I did today was pick up the trees at the post office.

I haven’t bothered to open the box, yet. It’s in the living room, where the air conditioner is, and no cats to try to tear into it.

The house is cooler – we’ve got the AC, my husband and I have box fans in our rooms, and the girls have their AC in their upstairs apartment. They also managed to get the old basement door to open (the knob needs replacing) and the wire mesh door we made for it is set up, allowing air circulation from the cooler basement.

The old basement is damp enough that I got two blowers and an oscillating fan going. The new basement has weeping tile but, after a rain barrel was allowed to overflow the summer before we moved here, the corner where that barrel was still gets damp, so I’ve got an oscillating fan on that corner, too. I still need to set up the summer window in the old basement, which is a combination of wire mesh and window screen, so no critters can get through. The extra air circulation will help with the dampness in that basement, too.

With the sump pump going off fairly regularly, and the hose set up to drain under a bed in the old kitchen garden, it means our tiny bok choy, beets and parsnips will get watered from below, too.

The heat was still getting to me and I ended up going down for a nap in the living room, with the AC running, for an hour and a half – I set a timer this time – shortly after lunch.

Then I went into the new basement. With all the transplants now outside, I cleared the set up that was on my work table, putting the full spectrum lights away (now I suddenly can’t remember if I shut off the shop light…). This gave me room to re-organize my seed packets and think about what I can direct sow, now that the soil temperatures are more than warm enough. Normally, I wouldn’t sow these things for another week, but the soil thermometer I picked up tells me the soil is ready, and the long range forecast shows no sign of frost. With all the protective netting I’ve been setting up, though, if there was a possibility of frost, I would be able to cover the beds that need it with cloth.

After going through my seeds, I set aside a number of packets into a separate bin, as thinks I can potentially direct sow in the next few days.

No, I won’t be sowing everything in that bin! The second picture shows part of why. Granted, that’s in the sun room, but still…

Most of what’s going into the garden beds will be transplants. I don’t actually have a lot to direct sow.

In the high raised bed, I will be planting bush beans, interplanted with onion transplants. I will be planting pole beans in the middle of the bed that has the daikon radish and white turnips winter sown into it.

The flower bed at the end of the high raised bed will have cosmos and nasturtiums transplanted into it. I have marigolds to transplant among the vegetable beds, but I also plan to direct sow more. I have bachelor’s button and other flowers I’d like to direct sow, but I’m not sure where, yet.

There is a space in the trellis bed that should have room to transplant cucumbers into it – if we have any to transplant. I do have the bi-colour pear gourds, though. I might transplant those, instead. There is also enough space between where the carrots are planted (I still can’t tell if we have any, after the second sowing) to direct sow something that isn’t too large and bushy.

One of the empty beds in the main garden area is meant to have some tomatoes, plus the celery and peppers transplanted into it. Onions will be interplanted among them. There aren’t a lot of surviving peppers, though. The spacing I have will determine what I will direct sow there. These are long beds and I might have extra space for the celery. They are a short season variety I could potentially direct sow more of.

Another bed, where the garlic was planted last year, is meant for squash or melons, but after the tray of winter squash, melons and cucumbers got decimated by something in the basement, it will be a while before the new seeds even germinate, never mind be ready for transplant.

I have two varieties short season corn to direct sow, but the area they are going in still needs to be uncovered and prepared. If we have any that survived, I hope to interplant winter squash transplants, or direct sow pole beans among them.

The bed along the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden will be direct sown with summer squash. I have 5 varieties to plant, possibly 6, if I have the space. That bed still needs to have hoops to hold protective netting set up over it, though.

In the newly finished bed I have at the chain link fence, I am looking to transplant winter squash and melons – if the new seeds replacing the eaten ones germinate and survive! I might end up buying transplants at some point, but I don’t know if it’s necessary, yet.

Among the other seeds I will sow as I find space are things like fern leaf dill, which I plan to treat as a perennial, and other varieties of peas and beans, including garbanzo beans, though those might wait until next year. The Caspar eggplant transplants don’t look very robust, but they are a short season variety, so I might direct sow more along with the transplants, just so see how that will work out.

With the heat holding on for so long in the day, I expect to only get the evening watering done tonight. I will try to get up earlier tomorrow and see what I can get done before it gets too hot out there. The highs are supposed to very slowly get “cooler”; starting tomorrow, we’re expected to be below 30C/86F for the next while. One of my apps says to expect rain starting Tuesday night (today is Friday), thunderstorms on Wednesday, and rain continuing through Thursday morning.

Right now, at almost 7:30pm, we’ve finally dropped to 28C/82F, though the “real feel” is still 29C/84F.

Time to find the bug spray and do the evening watering!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: one more bed prepped, and got a visit in

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The temperatures continued to climb today.

I started things off a bit early, and it was still lovely and cool. My priority, after I did my morning rounds, was to water the garden beds before the heat hit.

I’m happy to say that I am seeing new sprouts in the rows of spinach, chard, turnips and radish in the main garden area. I checked under the boards in the trellis bed and saw what might be carrot sprouts, so I removed the boards. It’s hard to say for sure, as a lot of weeds were trying to come up under there, too.

I’m pretty sure I saw new sprouts in the cabbage and kohlrabi beds, too. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing tiny bok choy and beet seedlings through the mosquito netting, thought it’s hard to be sure. I didn’t see any this morning, but this evening, I’m sure I could see the first dwarf pea sprouts!

After I finished outside, I came in and had breakfast, then tried to go down for a nap before I planned to visit my mother, then pick up anything we needed before doing our first stock up shop, tomorrow.

It was a failure.

For some reason, both Butterscotch and Cheddar have decided that, when I lie down, they absolutely MUST cuddle my head. Aggressively. Then curling up right at my head to nap themselves.

That doesn’t count the other cats that like to settle on my hip, against my back or on either side of my legs.

*sigh*

Next time, I’ll try napping on the couch. The living room is a cat free zone.

I eventually gave up and got ready to head into town. Before I did, I noted activity notification on my bank app and checked.

My husband’s tax return, which is supposed to include my first Disability Tax Credit, came in.

It was short by about $2500.

Unfortunately, my husband still can’t log into his CRA account to see why. I’m going to have to wait until our tax prepared is back from holidays at the end of the month and phone her, because she can log in and see his account – and maybe find out why he can’t log in, himself. anymore!

My younger daughter never got her disability tax credit, either. She did her taxes herself.

Frustrating.

Anyhow.

I headed into town and realized my mother would be just starting her lunch, so I decided to go to the grocery store, first. I actually picked up some ground beef that was on sale. I haven’t seen ground beef for under $6 a pound for a long time, even with sales.

My visit with my mother was pretty good. As I was headed to her room, I spotted her in the dining room and popped in. We then went to her room for the visit.

She is so enjoying having a room – and a bathroom – to herself! She says being in the nursing home, compared to the TCU, is like night and day.

Of course, she still had things to complain about. With her medications, as usual. Apparently someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time? Then the count for her morning meds was off. She said she asked who was in charge of the medications and was told it was the pharmacy in town. I suspect the person didn’t understand what my mother was asking, but she now believes the pharmacy decides what medications she gets, at their whim. She then started going on about how the staff all think she is stupid, and everyone living there is stupid, and that’s why they are deliberately messing with their medications.

*sigh*

She had asked my brother for a radio and he’d given me one to pass on to her. I plugged it in and tried to find the station she told me the number of. There was nothing on either AM or FM (she didn’t know which is was; she doesn’t understand anything about AM or FM). Since I couldn’t pick up her station (though I could pick up others), she decided it was a bad radio and started asking me if an old radio that belonged to my husband when we were in high school – a ghetto blaster, which tells you just how old it is! – was still around. It is, but I told her, it still won’t pick up that station. I tried to explain again about things interfering with frequencies, but she decided it meant that the radio stations were the problem, for having “weak” signals.

Then I tried to show her the sliding switch that goes from off to FM then AM. She demanded “just show me what button to push”. I told her, it’s not a button. It’s a switch that slides, and showed her again; Off – FM – AM.

She got angry that my brother would give her a high tech radio that she can’t understand.

*sigh*

It was a shorter visit, since there really wasn’t much we had to talk about. Now that she is in town, I can visit her more often, anyhow. Before I left, I spent some time at the nursing station. I explained what my mother told me about the medications, and that someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time. She was startled to hear that and said she would look into it. She got out the medication binder and looked up my mother’s file, going over everything, which is basically the same that it was while she was at the TCU. She said they tried looking at my mother’s list to compare (the hand written one she makes after she counts her pills, with little diagrams), but it was in Polish, so they were trying to translate it. My mother had been promised a list of her medications and they were going to try to get it translated into Polish for her, too. I told her, my mother knows pre-WWII Polish; she would not be familiar with modern medical terms in today’s Polish!

As we were chatting, the nurse told me how so many of the staff were startled when my mother was transferred over. Many of them had cared for Baba – “grandmother” – which is what they called my aunt. My mother looks SO much like her sister did. My aunt passed away a few years ago, so for the staff to suddenly start seeing their Baba again was a bit of a shock until they found out they were sisters.

This nurse had just started working there when my father came to live there. I’ve had it confirmed that he was there for only 5 months before he passed away; I thought it was 6 months. She remembered my father, and I told her about how, when I phoned him every Sunday, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him, how well taken care of he was, and how much he liked the staff. She was so touched to hear that!

So far, my mother has been very nice to them. I hope that lasts! She has been saving the nasty comments about the staff for when we are there. 😕

It was a good chat with the nurse, and I expect we will have many more opportunities to talk now that my mother is there!

That done, I headed home, then stayed indoors to stay out of the heat. Unfortunately, it just kept getting hotter. I finally headed out at around 6:30, which is about when we hit 27C/81F.

The predicted high was 25C/77F.

We’re supposed to keep getting hotter, with the hottest day in the forecast being Friday, which they are now saying is supposed to hit 34C/93F.

The yard cats are laying in puddles all over the yard, in whatever shade they can find.

Bobert was looking adorable in the cat bed I tucked under the isolation shelter’s door box, to keep the weather out in the winter.

With the heat, I made sure to do the watering again. This time, I did watering in the food forest area.

I’m happy to say that it looks like the apple tree survived, in spite of the damage to the stem. A single branch with new leaf buds has shown up. The plum tree also has leaf buds showing up finally, but only in branches coming up just above the graft at the base. None of last year’s growth is showing buds. Neither are the mulberry trees. They survived their first winter, but it looks like they didn’t survive their second. The poor little highbush cranberry have free leaves showing, but they are still remarkably tiny, including the one that the deer did NOT nibble one. The silver buffalo berry bushes, which I don’t bother watering because there are too many, had been covered with what I thought were leave buds. It turns out they were not leaf buds, but flower buds! The leaf buds are showing up now. The sea buckthorn also have leaf buds unfurling.

After the watering was done, I started working on the larger of the two East yard beds that had not been prepped in the fall.

I first removed the two lengths of twine that went around the sides. Those were there to keep anything wrapped around the box frame from flapping in the wind too much, but they were in the way for working in the bed. I considered taking the box frame off entirely, but decided it wasn’t necessary and worked around it.

In the second picture, you can see the cleaned up bed. Unfortunately, while I was leveling the cleared soil with the hoe, I caught the line running across that helped keep the sides from bowing outwards at the joins. The wood is rotting and the screw eye got pulled right out!

Honestly, I’m surprised these beds have lasted as long as they have. I used lumber I found in the barn that had been sitting there for probably at least a decade before I found them. They were not in particularly good shape, but they were the best I could find for the job. I expected them to last about 3 years, maybe, and they’ve lasted twice that by now.

Weeding the bed didn’t really take that much, except that I found a remarkable amount of tree roots! Given where this bed is located, they would not be from the elm tree, but from the nearby cherry bushes.

I look forward to when we can make these into high raised beds. These beds are about a foot high, but it was still really painful to be bending to work in it.

Once the bed was clear, I took some plastic that was rolled up and set aside from previous uses in these beds and covered the soil to protect it from cats, until we can plant in it. I’m looking to transplant tomatoes into this bed. We have four varieties to transplant, and couple probably fit three varieties in this bed. We don’t have a lot of each variety.

The pieces of wood frame on the left of the first photo are on the 4′ square bed that also needs to be done. By the time I finished the longer bed, I was too hot and in too much pain to do that one. Aside from weeding it – and that one has been infected by creeping Charlie – I will be adding the additional wood frame pieces to make it a bit higher, and can then add more soil into it. I’m planning to put the eggplant in here. It’s a small enough bed that I can add plastic walls around it, to protect them from high winds and create a semi-greenhouse around them.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done over the next few days. I’ll be doing our city stock up trips and a vet trip in between. Shopping always drains me, so it will depend on how much energy I have left – and what my pain levels are at. At the very least, I plan to water everything in the morning, and again in the evening, because of the heat.

Once the city trips are done, I expect to be able to start the direct sowing, and then hopefully start transplanting soon after. Somewhere in there, I’ll be uncovering and reclaiming the area to plant our corn in.

A lot to do in a very short time!

The Re-Farmer

So tired

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I’ve definitely been running around too much, over the past while.

With the trips to the city, I haven’t been doing as much physical labour, but I’m still in a lot of pain. Mostly the OA joint pain, but it’s definitely more of a mental fatigue than a physical one.

I headed out early today to do the morning watering. I didn’t need my older daughter to help out this time, nor was my younger daughter heading out with me, so they got to do some catching up on stuff in the house, instead.

My younger daughter was going to get the lawn mowing done as much as she could, in the heat. So, just riding mower stuff! We will just need to do the areas that can only be reached with either the push mower or the weed trimmer, later on.

I picked up some of my mother’s favourite fried chicken and potato wedges for our lunch today, so we had a relaxed visit over food, first. She was having one of her better days, behaviour wise, which made it much more pleasant! After that, we went over her shopping list. I spotted some gaps and asked a few questions, and did end up adding a couple of things to her list, too.

Before I headed out, I changed her bedding for her, so she could lie down while I was gone. She is really having a much harder time moving around her apartment of late. For all the heat, she’s also been finding herself getting cold!

I hit a couple of stores to get her shopping list done. It wasn’t a large list, but still came out to over $90. That’s just for one person for a week, and she has Meals on Wheels three times a week!

After her groceries were put away, I did some light housekeeping for her, then headed out. I made a brief stop at the hardware store, hoping to find some buckets in smaller sizes than 5 gallons, or watering cans. There weren’t any in the store, but I did remember to get handles to attach to the isolation shelter, to make it easier to move around, and caps for the end of the emergency septic pump bypass, so we can close that off and finally set aside the last of the outside parts of the emergency bypass.

The hardware store did have their garden centre section open, so I checked it out. I did find watering cans there, but only got one, as the price was pretty steep. I also spotted some lovely looking sage transplants and picked up two. There’s just enough room in the tiny raised bed, with the other herbs, for them.

All of this took long enough that, when I got home, it was already time to do the outside cat feeding, so I took care of that right away. A couple of kittens needed eye washing, and I changed out the ice packs in the sun room cat cage, for Poirot and her babies.

It’s barely past 5pm as I write this, and I am so drained, I’ll be heading to bed pretty much as soon as I’m done supper. Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter, and then we’re going to cool down a touch for the next while. I’m hoping to get the rest of the transplants in, and maybe even get the direct sowing done. I noticed this morning that some of the Spoon tomatoes have started to show flower buds!

This is what WP’s AI image generator thinks I look like. 😄

At some point, I need to edit my May garden tour video, too. I decided to keep the video files I took, back on the 21st, and here we are, last day of May, and it still hasn’t been put together!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

I just wish there weren’t so many distractions pulling me away, at times!

Food, next, then bed!

The Re-Farmer

A slightly different morning!

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We’re expected to reach around 30C/86F today, with the next couple of days potentially getting even hotter. So I’ve been heading out early in the mornings to water the garden and the saplings. This morning, I snagged my older daughter to give me a hand, since it was already 16C/61F by 6am.

While I went to the old kitchen to start getting food ready for the outside cats, my daughter shoed up and went out through the main door. It makes things easier to pass things from the old kitchen to someone in the sun room through the old kitchen door with the missing screen.

I had quite a surprise when I opened the inner door, though!

Miss Lemon, Hastings and Japp were tucked in, between the doors again!

The old kitchen is quite a bit cooler, so I’m guessing Poirot moved her babies to get them out of the heat again.

With that in mind, we left them there for a while, and worked on the cat cage. My daughter set one of the larger ice packs right under their cat bed. As thick as the cat bed it, it should still feel cooler, and it won’t melt as quickly. We set a couple of frozen water bottles around, too, before I started passing the kittens over for my daughter to tuck them back into the cat cage. By then, Poirot had come in and was very interesting in what we were doing to her babies!

After that, I headed out with the kibble and some leftover cat soup to distract the adult cats, while my daughter started preparing the wet cat food for the bigger kittens, mixing in some lysine/pumpkin seed powder and splitting it up between all the little bowls we have for them. We switched out a frozen water bottle in one of the cat beds in the water bowl shelter, too.

My daughter then grabbed the wagon, which already had containers of water waiting, to the outer yard and watered the walnut and Korean pine trees while I did the rest of my rounds. By the time I was switching out the memory card at the sign cam, my daughter was done refilling containers to finish watering the trees in the outer yard, while I got the hose going into the leaky rain barrel, and used a bucket to water the trees out there.

I was very happy to spot this.

The very first leaf bud on the Opal plum has emerged! It was rather strange to water a stick in the ground, not knowing if it survived its time in the mail, and being transplanted. Today, we have proof of life!

Once the food forest saplings were watered, I worked on the main garden area. There are quite a few potato leaves pushing their way through the mulch!

I think I’ll grab a small bucket of stove pellets, though, and head back to the garden before my younger daughter and I head back to the city today. The bed the flowers were replanted has no mulch at all, and it’s just baking in the sun. The high raised bed, and the newly planted strawberries, also need protection. On being watered, the pellets will break up into sawdust, so they won’t disturb the more delicate seedlings, will hold water longer, and should help keep the soil at least a bit cooler.

Some things are enjoying the heat, though.

These lilacs are at almost full bloom in most places! The double lilacs in the old kitchen garden are also opening up. I’m not seeing white lilacs yet. The dwarf Korean lilacs by the house will bloom later on, and the variety I can’t remember the name of right now, closer to the chain link fence, will bloom last of all.

I like having such an extended lilac season.

We’re already creeping up to 20C/68F, just in the time it took me to write this. I’d better get out there with those pellets before things get to hot!

The Re-Farmer

Dealing with the heat… and Mom issues again

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With an even hotter day expected for today, I was outside early to take care if things while it was still relatively cool.

If 20C/68F at 6am could be considered cool.

After the cats were tended to – and they were a lot happier and more active in the relative cool, that’s for sure! – I started preparing things for the upcoming heat.

The transplants were moved outside so they wouldn’t cook in the portable greenhouse later on. If you click through the above slideshow, you’ll see we have tulips blooming, and the wild plums are in full bloom.

I watered some of the winter sown garden beds, lifted plastic covers up for air flow, and was watering some of the food trees when I got a message from my daughter.

My mother had phoned. My daughter didn’t get to the phone in time, but her my mother leaving a message about not feeling well and going to the doctor.

???

So I shut off the hose, headed inside and listened to the message. Which wasn’t particularly clear in what exactly she was having trouble with, or what she was intending to do, but it was because she’s not getting her medications on time.

I called her back.

She started talking about how she was poorly she was feeling and she has to go to a doctor (she sounded good; voice strong, few issues with finding her works, no breathing issues…), and it was because she wasn’t getting her medications regularly.

Her morning med assist wasn’t expected to arrive for another hour.

After asking a number of questions, and basically, she thinks that the home care workers should arrive at her place at exactly the same time, ever day, no matter what. And there should only be two people visiting, not so many people, and that’s why she’s not getting her medications “properly”.

She’s getting her medications. They have a 2 hour window when she’s supposed to get them.

Then she started going on about the no-show on Saturday. She had asked someone about that and apparently this person had made arrangements with a friend to take over for her (which can’t be accurate; she would have arranged with another home care worker, but that’s not how my mother understood it) because – insert extremely mocking and condescending tone – it was Mother’s Day and she has a little daughter she wanted to spend time with.

Now, I have no idea what was actually said, since this was on Saturday, not Mother’s Day, but she was made at this woman for arranging to spend time with her daughter, rather than the woman who didn’t show up.

Which reminds me of another home care worker she complained about. While my mother was taking her pills the worker was texting her own mother on her phone. My mother was extremely mocking in describing this. While that does seem unprofessional, I suspected there was something else going on. After several different days of my mother complaining about the woman texting her mother while at my mom’s place, she finally mentioned…

Her mother had just had to put her dog down, and was having a hard time about it.

My mother was using her mocking tone again as she told me this, too.

I tried to explain to her that they need to have a lot of people, not just two, because they have a lot of people besides her that they have to visit, and they need to have enough people to cover for each other is someone gets sick or whatever. My mother began to complain about how they only cared about themselves, only themselves, not about her… They should only care about her.

Meanwhile, it’s my own mother who doesn’t care about anyone else, only herself. The home care workers should all not care about their own families. Just her.

The hypocrisy was completely lost on her.

Then she started talking about needing to talk to the doctor and to make an appointment.

One of the things on my to-do list was to call to arrange a phone appointment, because my mother’s doctor had left a message with her to do that. The clinic wasn’t going to open for another hour, though, and I told my mother that.

I kept asking questions, trying to understand what was going on, and telling her that if she really felt she needed help (she mentioned waiting up in so much pain, she can’t move and can only scream, but she doesn’t want to disturb her neighbours…), she had a life line. Push the button. That’s what it’s for.

She didn’t really respond openly, but clearly wasn’t interested in that. She wanted me or my siblings to drop everything and do it for her. Instead, she started talking about how, because she’s not taking her pills regularly (I think we might be having an issue of her rewriting her own memory again), that’s why she’s feeling so poorly. Her pain is getting worse, her vision…

Her vision?

She’s mentioned her vision before, but hadn’t said it was getting worse. That fact that it was NOT getting worse is why we got away with cancelling her last appointment.

I told her, she hasn’t said it was getting worse. None of her pills will help with that. This is where she would need to go to the eye clinic in the city. (The treatment is injections into her eyeball. Which she handled we better than I ever would have!!!) Did she want me to make an appointment at the clinic for her?

…

We’ll talk about that later, she says…

Then she started saying how she needs to be “around people” (meaning, have someone available to help, 24/7, as in assisted living/supportive living/long term care). Which I totally agree on. She asked and I told her again that I’d gone through her entire panel with the home care coordinator again, making changes where things have gotten worse for her, and basically taking her worst days and writing that down, to try and get her in somewhere; preferably long term care. I reminded her that most people go to long term care from the hospital; they fall and break a hip or something, and never go home. Just straight to long term care. Most people don’t actually want to go into long term care, like she does, so hers is a different situation. But we would still have to wait for a bed to come available, and for that, we’re basically waiting for someone to die, because that’s pretty much the only way space becomes available in long term care.

(I didn’t mention it this time, but I had told her about one of her neighbours that I’d run into, while my mother was in the hospital. She told me it had taken 8 months and two hospital transfers for her late father to get into long term care. He wasn’t well enough to go home, but there were no open beds in long term care, so he had to stay in the hospital.)

I remined her that I was already supposed to call the clinic to make a phone appointment for her this morning, but the clinic wasn’t open yet, so I’d have to call her back.

Which meant I lost about the cooler weather to get stuff done outside.

I had time for breakfast before calling the clinic. I made an appointment for tomorrow morning, which means I’ll have to be at my mother’s before 8am. I called my mother to let her know, but it went to her answering machine, so I left a message. Then I headed outside to at least finish what I was half way through before I headed inside.

Once I was back inside, I spent more time on the phone. One was to return a call from the small engine shop I’d left our push mower at, for servicing.

There are a couple of parts I can’t remember the names of, one connected to the choke, that were done. That’s why I couldn’t start it anymore. They simply were no longer there. My guess is, they broke and fell off. Our lawn is very rough on lawnmowers!

The problem is, this is a Canadian Tire, Certified brand. The parts are hard to get at the best of times. With these parts, there aren’t any parts numbers. Which means, they don’t service them. “Fixing” it would mean replacing the entire engine and, at that point, may as well just buy a new mower!

He’s going to try and find the parts for me but I told him, if you can’t, you can’t. Just let me know and I’ll pick it up.

I then told him that I do have another push mower. The prime pump needs replacing, and it’s jerry rigged for starting and stopping. It’s about 20+ years old. He told me that it would probably be easier to find parts for that, and those older machines last a lot longer!

So what I might end up doing is bringing the newer push mower home as basically trash, and bringing my mother’s old push mower in for servicing and repair instead. We shall see.

I also made a number of calls about the truck, trying to find out if the insurance will cover the lost box cover, and it it would be worth making a claim.

Long story short, I would start an insurance claim. They would make an appointment for me to bring it in for inspection. Someone from the insurance company comes to town every other week to do these inspections. If it’s determined that the damage isn’t because of some fault (rust, previous damage, etc), and that they will cover it, it would be worth paying the $500 deductible. A new cover ranges from $1200 to $2800. !!!! The tail light would also be replaced. They don’t just replace the cover, but the whole unit, and that costs about $250-$300. Not worth making a claim for just that, if the inspector decides they won’t cover the loss of the cover, at which point I could cancel the claim entirely.

Eventually, I made my way back outside.

This was the temperature before I headed out, then when I got back in.

Much of what I did was things like watering down the hot concrete, misting the transplants and garden beds, and wetting down the mats in the sun room to help cool through evaporation.

The first picture above was taken when I started my rounds at about 5:30-6am. Poirot stayed with her kittens for quite a long time. The wall thermometer was already reading about 20C/68F, while outside was still around 13C/55F. The frozen water bottles would be thawed by then, but must still have been helping keep things cool. Little by little, as I could reach, I replaced the water bottle in front with a new frozen one, and replaced the ice pack on top of the carrier with another ice pack. Eventually, I was even able to add a small ice pack along the side of the carrier.

Poirot let me do this.

She did growl at me as I did things around her, but I was able to give her a squeeze treat and she was quite happy with that, and with licking the last of it off my fingers, too. When I added the ice pack on the side, she shifted, but let me. Later, I put my hand in to pet one of her kittens and…

… she licked my fingers!!!!

When I later saw that she was gone, I switched out the water bottle in the back of the carrier for a frozen one. The second picture with the babies is after I’d done that.

So while it was still pretty hot in the sun room, things were much better in their nest, with the help of the car windshield heat screen blocking the sun from the windows and judiciously placed ice packs!

The bigger kittens had their own ways to keep cool.

Little Kale, in the first photo, was on the very bottom of a shelf, where temperatures would be cooler. The next photo shows some of the other kittens, chilling with the moms – one ran off before I could take the picture. Last image is of Sir Robin the Brave. When we pick him up, he almost immediately flips over onto his back, so we can pet his neck and chest! This kitten is so socialized, it’s amazing!

Meanwhile, every time I had the chance, I would try and call my mom to confirm about tomorrow.

No answer. Every time.

Then my older daughter offer to buy supper, so we wouldn’t have to heat the house with cooking (the upstairs is insanely hot!), so my younger daughter and I headed out, but not before I tried calling my mother again. Still no answer, so I ended up calling the home care coordinator, because that’s the only home care number I have. I explained that I talked to my mother this morning, but had been trying to get back to her for hours, and there was no answer. She was quite surprised to here this. My mother’s supper med assist was going to be happening soon. She told me she would let the home care worker know and that they’d get back to me.

We were on our way to town when my cell phone rang. It was the home care worker, calling to let me know she’d just left my mother. She had been asleep this whole time!

She was also very groggy.

Otherwise, she seemed all right.

I was very, very thankful for the news.

Our trip to town did not take long. After we got back home, I called my mother, and she answered the phone. She told me she had been sleeping and had a hot water bottle for her back (I can’t even imagine using a hot water bottle in this heat!), and her pain was why she was in bed. She never heard the phone ring.

I confirmed she got my message about tomorrow, so we’re on for that.

As we were talking, there was a knock at the door.

It was her suppertime med assist.

???

Which means the person that called me before had swung by my mother’s place, just to do a wellness check! She was not the evening med assist person!

That was so awesome of them!!!

So that’s all done for today.

For now, I just need to do my evening rounds and do the evening cat feeding. Normally, I would have done it earlier, but it was so hot, the cats don’t have much appetite!

*sigh*

The temperature had dropped to 27C/81F, but has just jumped back up to 31C/88F.

Well, things need to be put away for the night. The low is supposed to be 9C/48F, though not until about 6am. We’re supposed to have some rain for a couple of hours in the morning, and the high is supposed to be “only” 20C/68F Then things drop right down for the next few days!

That’s some wild weather whiplash we’ll be getting!

Anyhow.

Time to get out there, then try and get to bed at a decent hour. I had intended to do a few hours work outside really early, then nap for a couple of hours, but… well… that just didn’t happen!

I am so, so tired, in so many different ways!!

The Re-Farmer

Found them!

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I went to see if I could find where Poirot moved her kittens. I opened the inner door of the old kitchen – and Poirot jumped up and out the window of the outer door.

I found her babies.

She have moved all three of them in between the doors!

Well, it certainly would have been cooler there, but obviously, that wasn’t going to work!

I put them back into the carrier, the put the cover over it, without fastening it, hoping she would be okay with the “cave” being back.

Then my daughter and I watched her on the critter cam, grabbing a baby and disappearing out of frame. By the time I moved the camera, I could no longer see her.

She had moved one of her babies in between the doors again.

In the end, I went digging in a closet for one of those sun shields for inside car windshields, designed to keep the interior from getting too hot. It used to be in my mother’s car, but we never used it. I took it and set it around the back of the shelf the carrier had been in, to block the sunlight. Then I moved the carrier with the babies back to the shelf. Hopefully, between the frozen water bottles, the sun shield, wetting down the floor, thing will be cooler for her and the babies. Once we have more frozen ice packs, I have some I can put on top of the carrier, too.

I’m watching the critter cam now, but Poirot has left the sun room and hasn’t gone back up to the carrier to try and move them again.

This is not a problem I ever expected to have with a feral cat!

The Re-Farmer

Dangerous heat

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It’s a running joke about how cold it gets in Canada. The thing is, in much of the country, we get as hot in the spring/summer as we do cold in the fall/winter.

Today being a prime example. In the winter, we hit temperatures colder than -30C/-22F/ Now, we’re hitting temperatures above 30C/86F. The forecast was for a high of 31C/88F, but we easily hit 33C/92F.

I did the evening cat feeding and round not too long ago.

The temperature in the portable greenhouse was off the scale – and then some!

I did not know the needle could keep going like that. This would be what? 70C/158F? 80C/176?

I started off misting to cool things down, but that wasn’t going to be enough. All the bins and trays of seedlings got taken out and set in the shade next to the portable greenhouse. The new bags of seed potatoes were at the bottom, where it would have been cooler, but I moved them out and into the shade, too.

Cats were splayed all over the place. Inside the cat house would have been very hot, but those kittens are big enough to leave on their own and move to cooler places with the creche mamas.

There’s some video if you scroll through to the next file above.

It was the littles that were the problem. In fact, it was downright scary!

Poirot put her babies into a cat carrier in a shelf that’s supporting the platform that runs across that side of the sun room. For that time, it was a nice, cozy and protected spot with a soft blanket on the bottom.

Not good at all for today.

When I first stepped into the sun room to start gathering the bowls we use for wet cat food for the kittens, I saw that Poirot was not with the kittens. Nothing unusual there.

What was unusual was that all three kittens were panting.

Cats do not pant unless something is very wrong.

After moving things around for access, I took the carrier off the shelf and into the old kitchen. There, my daughter and I took the top of the carrier off completely. She had already brought out a frozen water bottle from the freezer, but we needed to cover it with something, and the knit blanket in the carrier had to go. I got a puppy pad and laid it on the bottom of the carrier, and the frozen water bottle was tucked under it at one end. While I held the carrier, with the distressed kittens inside, my daughter dug around in the freezer and found another frozen water bottle. That got tucked under the other end of the puppy pad.

I had moved out the plant stands the cats used to jump up the shelves, and I tried putting the carrier on the concrete floor there. When Poirot came in for her babies, though, she went right past them and up to the now empty shelf where she was looking for her babies. She ran off when I came close. I ended up putting the carrier back there, and she went right in to her babies.

Unfortunately, not only was it still hot there (the wall thermometer was reading almost 40C/104F, but the sun was hitting that spot, too. In the second file is some video I took. Poirot was trying to nurse her babies and just panting from the heat! I ended up getting a small plastic bowl with some water with ice cubes in it for her, but she wouldn’t let me get close. I didn’t want to chase her away from her babies, so I put it beside her food bowl.

She didn’t stay long. Not only was she too hot being there, but her own body heat would have made it worse for her babies.

While giving her time to be with her babies and figuring things out, I got the hose going, letting it run for quite a while to get rid of the scalding hot water from the hose sitting in the sun. I refreshed water bowls with cold water (our well water gets very cold, even in summer), misted plants, watered garden beds, and hosed down sidewalk blocks and concrete steps to cool them down. Which gave me the idea to wet the floor in the sun room. There are indoor/outdoor mats on the concrete floor and I went those down, so that the evaporation would help cool the room.

With Poirot away from her babies again, I moved the carrier to the floor, then set her special food and water bowls beside it. At first, the kittens were splayed out on the bottom of the carrier. When I came back later, they were as you can see them in the last image in the slideshow above. All together, with their heads against where the frozen water bottle is on one side of the carrier.

Looking at my desktop’s weather app, apparently we hit 35C/95F at about 4pm today. We are slowly starting to drop, but our overnight high is still expected to be around 19C/66F. Tomorrow – Tuesday – we’re still supposed to get even hotter then today, yet by Friday, we’re still expecting a high of only 4C/39F, with an overnight low of -1C/30F or -2C/28F, and a mix of rain and snow. After that is supposed to be another week of highs barely above 10C/50F, and overnight lows above freezing, but not by much.

On the plus side, there are now more days were we can expect rain (or snow), which will be helpful with all the wildfires going on right now. Most of them are now listed as under control.

Oh, dear.

I just checked the critter cam in the sun room.

Poirot’s babies are no longer in the carrier.

I hope she at least put them into the cat cage or something!

Time to go look!

The Re-Farmer

Three more walnuts planted, and an unexpected treat

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We got a nice little down pour in the wee hours of the morning. Not enough to refill the rain barrel, but enough to water things nicely.

Knowing it was going to get hot today, I made a point of having breakfast before I did my morning rounds, as I planned to stay out longer to do some planting, before it got too hot.

While checking on the covered garden beds, I tried to open them up a bit so they wouldn’t get too hot inside during the heat wave (we haven’t reached the hottest part of the day yet, and we’re already at 31C/88F) today and tomorrow, while still giving them protection.

I was hearing thunder the whole time I was outside. As I was gathering my supplies together into the wheelbarrow, the rain started coming down again. It didn’t take long for me to get quite wet before I could dash inside! I ended up waiting until about 8:30 before heading out again, though I’d really hoped to have been done by then.

I went through the bag of walnut seeds and found three that were showing roots and needed to get into the ground right away. That worked out perfectly, as there were three spots marked out along the wet side of the lane I want to keep clear to the second gate. It the second picture of the slideshow above, you can just barely see a dot of orange in the distance, marking the northernmost spot.

The first thing to do was rake around the markers, clearing them of dead grass and debris – and any little poplars coming up that I’d missed, before!

Next, at each marker, I removed a circle of sod, which I quartered and set aside to put back, later. Once the sod was removed, I dug around a bit more to loosen the soil and remove any rocks I found in the process.

Once the holes were dug, I added some of the indoor-outdoor potting soil my brother gave me, mostly filling the holes. Then a plastic collar was set into the soil. The loose soil and and sod (placed upside down), along with any rocks I’d dug up, was set around the collar and the hole in such a way as to create a sort of moat, so wany water would drain towards the middle. Then, all of them got a thorough watering. I actually have a couple of photos reversed. The one with the arrow shows where a walnut seed is. Each got pushed into the moist soil, root side down, and the marker was inserted into the soil near it. Each collar got topped up with more of the bagged soil and pressed down gently, before getting a final, thorough watering.

Once the seeds were planted and watered, I raked up more dried grass to set around as mulch.

Here was have the three planted areas, with the grass mulch set around the collars for mulch. The very last photo shows the “combed” area I’d raked the dead grass out of. I just thought it looked rather funny. 😁

Three seeds planted; five more to go! All of those will be planted on the east side of the lane, and closer to the inner yard fence.

While it hadn’t gotten really hot yet, things were pretty muggy, so I was more than happy to get inside!

I had some plans to head into town today, which turned out to work out for everyone. Because of her work schedule, my older daughter basically didn’t see me on Mother’s day until some time past midnight. She wanted to treat me with a Mother’s day dinner today. After the four of us discussed options and ideas, my younger daughter and I left for town in the late morning.

My first stop was at the place our truck is insured at. I talked to someone about the wind damage to the truck, asking if it was something the insurance covered. She didn’t know for sure, but gave me the number I needed to call and find out. Since the cover isn’t actually part of the truck, she was pretty sure it wouldn’t be covered, but it’s worth asking.

The next stop was at our usual Chinese food place to place an order, only to discover they were closed. We keep forgetting. They are always closed on Mondays. After talking about it with my daughter, we decided to try the other Chinese restaurant. We keep forgetting about that one, but I’ve been there for sit down meals a few times while waiting for my truck to be worked on, since it’s in a hotel right next to our garage. This restaurant, it turned out, closes on Tuesdays, so we were good! 😄

After going over the menu and deciding on things for my husband and myself, I left my daughter to take care of the rest while I went to the pharmacy. My husband had ordered refills of his injections for delivery, but getting them faster was preferrable. While there, I also picked up some liquid, spray on bandage. The little calico kitten has a strange wound on her back leg, and lost some skin. We can’t bandage it and, while we’ve been applying antibiotic ointment, it really needs more protection.

That done, I got back to the restaurant early enough that my daughter and I popped across the street to the grocery store, where she picked up drinks to go with our Chinese food. We got back just in time for the food to be ready.

That was a very nice treat from my daughter – and no need to heat up the house more with cooking, today! The air conditioner in the living room has been turned on. We need to start bringing the fans up out of storage in the basement.

In the end, it has turned out to be a more productive day than I expected it to be, with this heat.

One more hot day, and then it’s going to get downright cold again! I’m certainly happy to have gotten those walnuts in!

The Re-Farmer

Melting

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Well, we reached our predicted high of 31C/88F, with the humidex putting us at 33C/91F, and we’re not expected to start cooking down until well into the evening.

I had a much interrupted night, so the girls took care of the outside stuff for me, including watering the garden, so I could try and get some more sleep. Which is rather difficult when, every now and then, a cat will suddenly get the zoomies and parkour off my body while careening across my room. What a way to be awakened!

I did make my trip into town, late this morning. It was slightly delayed when I stopped at the post office to pick up a package, and found my daughter’s computer was in a day early! I’d even checked the tracking this morning, and it was still saying tomorrow, by the end of day. Once I had that, I went back home to drop it off, then headed into town. My daughter hasn’t tried to take it upstairs yet. Her old computer is still chugging away, backing things up onto online storage – a very sloooooow process. She’ll start getting the new machine set up during the night.

I had intended to see what errands I could do while I was in town after sanitizing and filling our water jugs (it’s a different grocery store than where I usually go to, that has a sanitation station with their refill fountains), I got a message from my husband asking if I could swing by the Greek restaurant and pick up a couple of gyros for him. I found out this morning that my husband had eaten almost nothing all day yesterday – he just didn’t have any appetite – and his blood sugars dropped dangerously low. He had to pop glucose tablets to get himself back up again. The water refill station at the grocery store happened to be next to their pharmaceutical section, and they had some of the glucose tablets in stock, so I grabbed a bottle. With his Ozempic dose being doubled, the danger of his blood glucose levels dropping are much higher. Which ticks me off because I am 100% certain that is his chronic pain could be brought under control, he blood sugars would normalize. However, there’s no fix for his back, and so far, no pain killers tried have been able to get it under control. At best, it become more bearable. It’s like when he was diagnosed diabetic the first time. After that he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and started using a CPAP. Almost immediately, his blood sugars normalized and he lost about 100 pounds. I suspect the increase in dose for the Ozempic is more for the potential side effect of weight loss, but he’s been on this stuff for years now, and it has had zero effect on his weight. Plenty of other side effects, like losing much of his sense of taste, a loss of appetite, loss of muscle mass and intestinal distress, but his weight just won’t change.

Needless to say, when he asked for the gyros, my other plans went out the window, got his food and headed straight home with it, and skipped the other places I was going to check out.

I had been thinking of going to the dump later today, when it opens for the evening, but we really don’t have enough garbage and recycling to make it worth burning the gas in another trip.

My other plan had been to try and get some lawn mowed this morning, before it got hot, but that didn’t work out. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little bit cooler, so I will see if I can get it done then. In fact, our entire 10 day forecast has changed and, after tomorrow, we’re now supposed to be closer to 20C/68F instead of in the 30C/86F range.

I just got back from refreshing the cats’ water bowls outside, and adding frozen water bottles in a couple of them to help keep them cooler. The cats are just splattered all over, trying to keep cool

Except for these ones.

She’s nursing six kittens.

She only had four kittens in her litter.

So happy to see Button in there, getting some nip!

I’m just looking back at some of my garden posts from a year ago. At this time, our garlic was all harvested and curing, and I tried planting beets, radishes and spinach in the empty bed (they did not do well at all). I was also harvesting bush beans, turnips and G-Star pattypan squash. Not a lot, but at least something! I was even getting some yellow zucchini and the odd green one from the plants that survived getting eaten by slugs. We had Black Beauty tomatoes getting so big and heavy, we had to add extra supports. Our Spoon tomatoes were turning red, and our Sweet Chocolate peppers were covered in developing fruit. We even started harvesting some Indigo Blue tomatoes, and our Pink Banana and Georgia Candy Roaster had so many huge squash developing!

I’ll be doing another garden tour video in the middle of the month. Hopefully, things will have progressed between now and then! It should be interesting to compare the two.

For now, though, the main priority is to keep things protected from the heat.

Including us!

The Re-Farmer