A lovely little bee, laden with golden pollen, on a Hopi Black Dye sunflower!
I was very happy to see it this morning. Strangely, I have not been seeing very many pollinators since we finally got rain. We still have flowering summer and winter squash, beans and peas, along with the sunflowers. With the sunburst squash, which is the most prolific of them all, I can see quite a few losses due to lack of pollination. The Magda squash as well, and we only have the one plant. We have plenty of yarrow blooming, among other wildflowers, so there is plenty to attract them. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t tried to get rid of the wasps nest in the crack in the foundation under the old kitchen. They are almost the only pollinators I’ve been seeing lately!
The remaining Hopi Black Dye sunflower in the old kitchen garden has three seed heads forming. This is the second one to open, and the third is still just a big bud.
I finished my rounds with picking tomatoes. Here is this morning’s haul.
I was curious, so when I transferred them to a colander for washing, I counted them.
While heading out to do my evening rounds yesterday, I topped up the cat kibble – and got invaded by kittens!
There is only one adult cat in the kibble house in the above photo, plus Rosencrantz and her two are at their private dining area under the shrine.
All three litters of kittens were running all over the yard, playing with each other! The fact that most of them stayed to eat while I took photos – even with zoom – is very encouraging. :-) It will be good for them to get used to each other, since we can expect them all to be using the cat shelter over the winter.
While checking the garden beds, the girls gave me a hand moving one of the mesh covers so we could collect our very first chard leaves!
These are the Bright Lights chard, with their brilliant colours.
In the other bed where we had planted chard and radishes, only a single chard plant has survived the grasshoppers, and it’s pretty small, still.
Here we have the largest of the developing Hopi Black Dye sunflower heads. These are the ones that were direct sown after last frost.
This morning, I found this.
This is another Hopi Black Dye sunflower, from the row of transplants. These are the ones that did not germinate until after the others were direct sown, so they were much smaller and further behind. Then they had their tops chomped off by deer. Yet here they are, spindly and barely knee high, yet the seed heads are starting to open before the big ones!!
Speaking of seed heads…
I collected the driest of the poppy pods. I was a bit concerned that the rain and humidity would create a mold issue, so they are now in the sun room. As you can see, some of them are even dropping seeds!
These are Giant Rattle Breadseed Poppy, and the pods should be much, much larger than this, but given the growing conditions of this year, I’m just impressed we have any at all. There are still others that are green, but starting to dry out. I am debating just leaving them be, to self sow for next year. Given how few survived, there isn’t enough for eating, other than a taste, but more than enough to keep seeds for planting in a different area next year, if we want. I wouldn’t mind even finding a spot to scatter them as if they were wildflowers, where we can access them to harvest seed pods, but also where we can leave them to self seed, year after year. At the same time, I’m thinking of ordering more of this variety from Baker Creek, plus trying a different variety of eating poppies I found from a Canadian source. This is something I don’t mind having lots of, as poppy seeds are among those things I enjoy, but rarely buy. Neither variety I’ve found are like the ones I remember my mother growing, but I believe she got her seeds from Poland.
As things are maturing, my mind seems to constantly assess for next year or, as in the case of the poppies, for a more permanent crop. For all the difficulties we’ve had with this year’s garden, due to things pretty much out of our control, we have learned a lot that we can apply to future gardens, what we want to keep, and what we need to change. Especially as we move from our temporary garden beds to our permanent ones. :-)
On a completely different note, today we had an early birthday party to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday at my brother’s. I was my mother’s chauffeur. :-) We had a great time, and we able to see her great grandson for the first time in almost 2 years. They live in a different province, so it was fantastic that they could come out for the birthday party.
Between the drive and how long we stayed to visit, we were out pretty much all day, but my mother held out very well. She even seemed to like the necklace we got for her gift and put it on right away, though she was completely indifferent to the little bag I crocheted to “wrap” it in. Even when I suggested she could use it to hold one of her rosaries, she said nothing. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know if she took it home. I helped bring in and put away her packages, and it wasn’t in any of them, so unless someone tucked it into her purse, she doesn’t have it. Which is actually a better response than I was expecting. :-D
Some things just don’t change! ;-)
Anyhow.
As wonderful as it was to see everyone, this introvert needs a battery recharge. I think an early bed time is in order! :-D
This is so very late in the season, but it finally happened.
Our first Hopi Black Dye sunflower seed head is opening!
When the seeds we’d started indoors neglected to germinate until after we’d already direct seeded outside, there was just one for a while. That one got transplanted into the old kitchen garden, and when a second seedling sprouted, it was planted here as well. Then a whole bunch sprouted, and they got transplanted to the main garden.
Of the two that were planted here, the first one was broken by high winds and did not recover, so there is just this one, now.
However, this one plant has three seed heads forming! The third one is mostly hidden under a leaf to the left of the one that’s opening.
It should be interesting to see how far they are able to develop before first frost hits!
Meanwhile, our recent rains have given us more sunflowers. Sort of.
This is where the large birdhouse landed, when the raccoons broke it. It had been almost full of black oilseed. The critters ate most of it, but as you can see, that still left lots behind to start sprouting! I think recently mowing over this area gave them the sunlight they needed to explode like this.
I’ve read that sunflower seedlings make for tasty microgreens. I don’t plan to harvest this out of the lawn, but one of these days, I think we should give it a try. :-)
As always during my morning rounds, I checked on the various beds to see how things are growing.
This most mature of our Red Kuri squash has ceased growing in size, and is just beautifully deepening in colour as it ripens.
While it’s neighbour is getting bigger. We won’t have a lot of mature winter squash at the end of the season, but we might have at least the two of them before first frost hits. Which, I hope, will be very late this year!
The one Mongolian Giant with so many seed heads, now has more of them opening and blooming!
These ones just amaze me. These are the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers that were started indoors, but did not actually germinate until after the other ones were direct sown outside. They were much smaller when transplanted, then all but one got their heads chomped off by deer. And yet, not only are they recovering from the deer damage, they are producing seed heads! Meanwhile, the ones that were direct sown are looking a lot bigger, you can see where the seed heads are starting to develop, but so far, they still have not actually emerged as obvious seed heads.
I do want to try these sunflowers again, but I think we will have to invest in a seed tray heat mat to start them indoors, to help with germination.
Yesterday, we picked summer squash and beans. Today, it was tomatoes!
Because of their small size, I use one of the red Solo cups to collect the tomatoes, and this time I quite nearly filled it to the top! That’s the most we’ve gathered, yet. :-)
You can see a few of the tomatoes have split, from all the rain we’ve had recently.
I also “topped” the tomatoes this morning. I had no idea this was a thing, but a couple of garden related channels I follow had talked about it. It is only needed for indeterminate tomatoes, as they just keep growing taller, putting out more blossoms and fruiting, until the first frost kills them. That leaves a lot of green tomatoes. For this time of year, pruning the tops off the plants will stop them from getting bigger, and the green tomatoes will start ripening faster, instead of staying green longer, so there will be more ready tomatoes before first frost hits.
If that is what starts happening, with how loaded the tomatoes are with green fruit, that should hopefully mean we will start harvesting enough at once to make it worth preserving them in some way. With their small size, I’m not entirely sure what method we’ll use, yet. Only my husband and one of my daughters eats tomatoes, so it’ll pretty much be up to them to decide that one. :-)
Thinking ahead to next year, the Spoon tomatoes are fun, and they’re great for fresh eating – we’ll likely grow them again, though they are also likely to self seed. The Mosaic Mix tomatoes are doing well and being enjoyed, but we want to try others. There are several varieties of cherry and grape tomatoes my older daughter wants to try, and I want to grow paste tomatoes. I may not be able to eat tomatoes fresh, but I can eat them if they’ve been processed enough before being used as an ingredient. Plus, we have the Yellow Pear variety of tomato we already picked up seeds for to try.
We need to start going over our plans and wish lists for next year’s garden, so we can plan and prepare things this fall.
Yesterday evening, we found ourselves having another wonderful, solid rainfall! Enough to kick out our internet, but it was well worth it.
Then, even as it was still raining above us, the setting sun lit up the more gorgeous rainbows.
This is how it looked from the inner yard, beautifully framed by trees.
But we had to go to the outer yard to see both of them. Photos, of course, cannot do justice to the real thing! They were so incredibly bright and colourful.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen rainbows!
Along with the welcome rain, we’ve had a lot of high winds lately. Sadly, the wind broke one of the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in the old kitchen garden. This was the very first one that had been started indoors to germinate, and I planted it, and one other, there when I didn’t think any others would make it, so it was the furthest along of all the transplants (which are recovering from getting their heads chomped off by a deer).
When I found it bent in half, I placed a support near it and tied the stem gently to it, but it wasn’t enough. I ended up lashing a piece of doweling directly to the stem to keep it from bending.
Yesterday, even with the doweling, I found it it leaning over again; the main support had actually been pushed over the the wind, too, and was no longer holding it straight. It was looking wilted, too, but I straightened it up anyhow, and hoped for the best.
Frankly, I’m amazed it’s still alive at all, with that damage!
Remarkably, when I checked on it this morning, it was no longer wilted! Yesterday’s rain perked it right up again. It might actually survive!
While doing my morning rounds, I picked some beans and a zucchini, then grabbed a selection of garlic, an onion and a shallot, to bring to my mother. She’s supposed to avoid foods in the onion family, but a little is okay, so I gave her just enough to get a taste of each.
I was able to have lunch at my mother’s, then we ran errands together. There was only one place I wasn’t able to go in with her, as the store is still requiring face masks, even though they are no longer mandated. I find it so strange and arbitrary that I can help my mom at the clinic and go into a medical lab with no issues, but the second hand store has issues with open faces. I did get a laugh at the grocery store when my mom commented to another customer about her still wearing a mask. It turned out she had no idea they were no longer required. I hadn’t even finished explaining the mandate had been lifted when she was tearing that thing off her face. And here I’d just been talking to my mother, wondering at the people walking around outside, alone, with masks on, which has never been mandated, and she was suggesting people didn’t know the restrictions had been lifted. My response was, of course they know. Who doesn’t know about it by now? Well, it turns out she was right!
One out of the ordinary stop we made today was a hardware store. She was looking for something specific, so I snagged an employee (who greeted me by name, which was weird, because I had no idea who he was – even if he weren’t wearing a mask!) and told him what my mother was after. My mother half-recognized him; turns out he’s from a farm just a couple of miles away. I never knew really knew him, and probably hadn’t seen him even in passing, in more than 30 years, and am amazed he knew who I was. Maybe it’s because I look so much like my mother?
Anyhow, with him helping us, my mother got to the real reason she wanted to go there.
She asked for an estimate on some garden sheds they had on display.
*sigh*
I told my mother, we don’t need a garden shed. If she really wants to get something that will help make the place look better, a wood chipper would be more useful. She wouldn’t hear of it. She’s got her mind set on a garden shed to replace the old and rotting one that’s here. Well, it’s her money, and it would certainly get used, but if she wants to get something for the farm, it’s about the least needed of things on the list. Heck for the amount the estimate came out to (including concrete deck supports and delivery; we’d still have to assemble it), we could get a solid chipper, hire someone to haul away the junk (including the old garden shed), replace the main entry doors and frame, and still have money left over.
When I suggested the chipper instead, her response was one that has become her default when I point out things that are needed, vs what she wants, on the farm. She told me to talk to my brother, as if he could afford to get this stuff! She still planned to talk to him about the garden shed.
After I got her home, I took a photo of the estimate to share with my brother, and she started back tracking, saying there was no hurry. :-/
The seasons are moving along, though, and having a wood chipper by this fall would be a huge benefit for gardening next year, but she still can’t wrap her mind around the concept of mulching as it is, no matter how often I explain it. She’d never heard of it before, therefore this is a “new” thing, and wrong.
Ah, well. It’s her money, and she can spend it how she wants. I just hate to see her waste it on something so low on the priority list. Especially since it’s more about appearances (as if there’s anyone who can see it!), rather than usefulness, and she complains about how ugly the branch piles look, every chance she gets! Plus, if she wants to get something “for me” so badly, you’d think she’d want to get something I actually want or need. But it’s not really for me, anyhow. It’s for her, and what the neighbours think – the ones that live a mile away… LOL. :-D
So that got done, and we did have an actual good visit, even with our usual head butting. I left early enough to head to town to pick up some prescription refills for my husband. For the first time in a year, I was actually able to walk into the store to do it, too. Then I did a quick grocery run, dashed home long enough to put things away, then did a dump run.
I must say, it felt very good to finally get home and stay home! :-D I try to combine errands as much as possible, so we don’t have to go out as often, but my goodness, it is draining. I much prefer my hermitage! :-D
Meanwhile, I’m going to have to go out again tomorrow, to get things we need for early the day after!
When we were living in the city, I thought nothing of running out three or four times a day. Now that we’re living out here, driving out even once a week for errands feels exhausting.
I am so spoiled by living here on the farm again! :-D
Like for so many others this year, it has been a real challenge to keep things alive and growing in the garden. With our furthest beds, even having enough hoses to be able to reach the furthest beds, the corn and sunflower blocks were the hardest to keep watered, until we started using the sprinkler.
The corn is nowhere near as tall as they would have been, if we weren’t in drought conditions, but they have really grown a lot in a very short time, and are starting to develop their tassels. Because of how long the area of corn and sunflowers is, the sprinkler we have can’t cover it all. To be able to water it all, we set it up in the middle of one of the sunflower blocks, set it to “full”, and it can water most of the blocks. After a while, we move it to the end and set it to spray just on one side, and we get the rest of it. The corn block in the middle tends to get water from both settings, and it really shows. The corn in the photo in that middle block.
The sunflowers are also not anywhere near as tall or robust as they would be. Especially the Mongolian Giant sunflowers. They and the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers, pictured above, are basically the same size. Only the ones that got started indoors and transplanted are slightly taller. All of them have very thin stems, still. As you can see in the photo, however, they are starting to grow their flowers! I don’t expect them to reach full size, but I do hope we at least get some of the Black Dye sunflowers reach maturity.
We planted sunflowers, and chose the location for them, for a number of reasons. One of those reasons, for both the corn and the sunflowers, was to have a privacy screen. Unfortunately, this year’s drought has prevented that particular goal from happening.
If all goes to plan, however, we will be planting shrubs that will do that particular job, on a permanent basis!
For the past while, we have been pretty much constantly checking the weather radar. Yesterday evening, it was getting discouraging, and the predicted overnight rain kept getting pushed back and the weather system passed us by to the south. This morning, however, I was thrilled to see a system pushing rain right over is. Granted, based on the radar images, we should have been raining right at that moment, but at least we weren’t going to be missed entirely.
We did get at least some rain last night, as the ground was still damp when I came out to do my morning rounds. It even started raining while I was out there! A very light rain; the sort of rain that, had I not been outside being rained on, I wouldn’t have been able to tell it was happening, but still, it was rain!
While checking the furthest garden beds, I was accompanied by Creamsicle Baby, who has finally started to allow us to pet him again. Frustratingly, when the cats follow us around those beds, they have a terrible habit of going into the pea trellises. This morning, I had to chase Creamsicle off the pea plants he was rolling on, only to have him come right back and start playing with the trellis twice, pulling their pegs out of the ground and getting tangled in them!
Even as I checked the garden cam this morning, I saw Butterscotch going through the pea beds, all four kittens following along, and every one of them went through the pea trellises, running, bouncing and rolling around.
Those poor peas just can’t seem to catch a break!
Other things, however, are doing quite well.
I’m really impressed by how well these Hope Black Dye sunflower transplants are doing. These are from the ones we tried starting indoors, but never germinated until well after we’d direct sown the other half of the seeds outdoors. The seedlings have pretty much quadrupled in size since they got transplanted. I don’t expect them to have a chance to reach maturity, given how late in the season they got transplanted, but part of the reason we grow sunflowers is as a privacy screen and wind break, and these might still accomplish that. Assuming they don’t get eaten. This morning, I saw deer tracks in the soil at the very ends of two bean beds, but no signs of anything new critter damage, so here’s hoping!
Every time we go out to these garden beds, we can’t help but check on the melons. They are getting so big!! This variety isn’t supposed to get as large as, say, the cantaloupes we see in the grocery store, but they are still supposed to produce lots of 4-5 pound fruit. The Pixies are supposed to reach about 1 1/2 pounds in size. I’m really, really excited about these. Melons are among my favourite foods, but we rarely buy them, as they are a treat, rather than an essential.
One of the challenges we’ve been having as been with the potatoes. Since discovering some critter damage, we unrolled the feed bags we’re growing them in to full height. If these had been indeterminate potatoes, we would eventually have done that by continually adding more soil, but these turned out to all be determinate potatoes, so there is no advantage to doing that.
Unfortunately, that meant there was nothing to support the bags, and the plants kept flopping over. Especially while being watered. If we had mulch, we could have added that to help fill the space and keep them from flopping over, but we don’t have anything right now. At least it’s been working to keep critters out, but some of the bags were flopping over to the point that I was concerned the stems would all break, and they’re still in their blooming stage.
Last night, I think I found a solution.
This is how they looked this morning, so it seems to have worked!
What I’d done is cut small holes near the tops of the bags, then tied them together with twine. The double row was tied together in groups of four, while the bags in the front were tied in groups of three. Then, just in case, extra twine was run around the front, tying them to the chain link fence. So now, the bags are holding each other up, while also protecting the plants from critters. It’s just insects we’ll still need to keep an eye on.
Hmm. One down side of finally getting some rain. There are some storms passing to the south of us, which means we’ve lost internet. The WordPress editor’s autosave has been spinning for a while, and once that starts, it doesn’t recover even once the connection is back. Which means that I can’t save my draft, and once our connection is up again, I’ll have to open whatever draft was last autosaved, then copy and paste whatever got missed into it, before I can publish it, and close this window.
Oh, the internet seems to be back again! Let’s see if I can publish this!
I love how, every day, there seems to be something new or different in the garden!
While doing my rounds, one of the first things I do after putting food and water out for the cats (or like today, just water, as my husband was feeling good enough to go outside and do their food), is check the nearby potatoes.
They are so huge and lush, you can barely see the grow bags! Of everything we planted this year, nothing is doing as well as the potatoes.
Hopefully, that means we’ll have lots of potatoes, and not just lots of greenery!
Potato flowers are such pretty little things!
While checking the tomatoes, I tried looking for the baby tomatoes we’ve been seeing and had a hard time finding them. Then I found this “huge” spray of tomatoes I’ve somehow missed seeing all this time!
“Huge” being a relative terms, for the world’s smallest tomatoes! :-D
While heading back down the driveway after switching out the trail cam memory card, I had to pause to get this photo.
There are less of these flowers than last year, and they are blooming later. Like so many other things, they had been damaged by that one cold night in May, and it’s taken this long for them to recover. We don’t water down here at all, and we’ve had no rain, so it’s amazing to see them at all. Such resilient flowers!
I was weeding the big carrot bed this morning, which is rather difficult right now. I sometimes wonder why I bother, considering how much they’ve been eaten. I accidentally caught a remaining carrot frond while pulling up a weed, and pulled a carrot up with it.
I’m… kinda glad I did.
If they have this much root after all they’ve been through, there is still a chance for them! We won’t get any big carrots, and my hopes of having enough to can are certainly dashed, but we might still have something worth harvesting.
As for this little guy, I washed it off with the hose and ate it, and as small as it was, it was tasty.
So that’s encouraging.
I had another surprise waiting for me in the old compost pile nearby.
Amazingly, there are more mystery squash coming up, next to the stems of the chewed up ones!
Of course, nothing will come of them after sprouting this late in the season, but we might at least see them get big enough to determine what they are.
I find these two Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in the old kitchen garden very interesting. The bigger one was the first of the seeds we started indoors to germinate. That was after the ones we’d direct sown outside had already germinated. The smaller one, which has the label next to it, germinated some time later. Right now, both of these are bigger than the ones that germinated first, in the large beds. The difference, of course, is the soil. The other ones are planted in an area that has not been amended or planted in before, while these are in a garden we’d been working on for 3 summers already
As for the tall plant behind the smaller sunflower, we still don’t know what it is. :-D
I was happy to see that many of the poppies have seen quite a growth spurt, and the ones that were under rhubarb leaves are getting stronger.
Then there is this plant, nearby.
When we were preparing the bed next to the retaining wall, there was a compact plant growing in it. Unsure of what it was, other than “some kind of flower”, we dug it up and transplanted it between the rhubarb and the chives. It quickly grew from a compact, bushy plant to the tall, leggy thing you can see in the photo.
I also now recognize it, though I still don’t know the name.
Do you see those sprays at the ends? With the small round things hanging down?
When it starts blooming, this plant has lovely, delicate little flowers.
Which then become some of the most annoying little burs, ever. It isn’t possible to go near one of these without ending up with masses of tiny burs stuck in your clothes, that are harder to get out than burdock! I’ve had some get so thoroughly stuck in my clothes, not only was I not able to get them completely out, but they managed to stay stuck after several washings!
After I took this photo, I pulled it up. Even though it is in the flower bud stage, it still tried to stick to my clothes!
It did not go into the compost, but into the fire pit for eventual burning.
If we ever get to light the fire pit this year. I suspect not.
While things have finally cooled down today – in fact, it actually got chilly last night! – and we are no longer getting heat warnings on our weather apps, we are now getting air quality alerts. There are a number of fires burning in our province right at the moment. I’d actually been smelling wood smoke for a while before we started getting the alerts, and with our heat and dryness, I was very concerned. None of the fires are near us, thankfully, but we’re still getting some of the smoke.
Today will be our coolest day for the next while, with a high of only 18C/64F so I will be taking advantage of it and getting things seeds sown in those empty spinach beds! :-)
After yesterday being such a crappy day, I’m happy to say that today was much improved!
This morning, I found several bright bits of sunshine in the garden.
Several of our summer squash blossoms are now fully open! There are just male flowers right now, so it’s still too early to expect baby squash, but it’s still very exciting to see!
The summer squash was not the only thing in bloom.
Some irises in the flower garden outside the living room window started blooming today. These have been here for as long as I can remember, coming back year after year, decade after decade. They may well have originally been planted here before I was even born.
We got the trip to the smaller city that I meant to do yesterday. One of our stops was to Canadian Tire, where I was finally able to find the air filter I needed for the push mower. After double checking exactly what I was looking for, I realized that the last couple of times we’d looked for a filter, this type wasn’t in stock at all, so I was happy to find one.
We also made a stop at the nearby Walmart. We ran out of kibble this morning, and had a few other things we needed to pick up. Thankfully, we were able to get everything on the list, and still stayed under budget – something we couldn’t have done if we’d had to buy in town.
One of the other things we needed to get was more gas for the lawnmowers, so pretty much as soon as we got home, I changed the air filter on the push mower, and was finally able to finish most of the mowing.
I had started to move along the driveway with the riding mower, a couple of days ago, but there was no way I could use the riding mower to do the area in front of the barn. This is the first time this area has been mowed this year, and it was tall enough to make hay! I’ll go back with a rake and the wagon to pick up clippings for mulch. There was no way I was going to use the bag. I’d have needed to stop to empty it so often, I would never have been able to finish it all in one evening. As it is, there is still another area that needs to be done, but it’s not used at much. At least now, we don’t have to wade through knee high grass to get to the barn and shed!
I also finally got to cut the main garden area, that is too rough to use the riding mower on. Frankly, found myself thinking I maybe should have used the weed trimmer over all of it, but at the highest setting, the push mower was able to do the job.
I had done most of this area with the riding mower; the strip along the right was done with the push mower; you can tell by the darker green, because I had the mower set so much higher. This strip had been plowed, so there are still furrows. If I wanted to get the rest, among those trees, I’d have to use the weed trimmer.
It’s just a guess, but I’m pretty sure where I was standing to take the photo is where the telephone lines are buried. A thing to keep in mind when we plant the trees we are planning on.
This photo was taken from the same spot, facing the other way.
Not much left of that pile of garden soil!
Part of this section was also plowed. You can see the gate in the back, where the tractor and plow would have entered. The plow was dropped starting along the trees on the right. Why there, I have no idea. There hasn’t been garden there since I was a babe. My parents did try gardening here, when they first moved the garden closer to the house (it used to be way out by the car graveyard, when my parents first moved out here). As I child, I remember when the area that has the trees right, now, was a cabbage patch. The area the dirt pile is on now was no longer being used by then. I remember asking my mother why they stopped using this section, and she told me it was too rocky.
Considering how many rocks are everywhere else, that’s saying a lot! :-D
Anyhow, I still wonder why the plowing was starting that far back, but then, my sister thinks the person who did it was drunk at the time, so who knows? The furrows mean it’s another area for the push mower, though the section to the right is flat enough for the riding mower.
I was even able to do some mowing among the trees, to open up some of the paths. The plants at the bottom of the dead spruce tree in the left foreground bloom beautifully, so I’m making sure to leave them be. I’ll have to do the rest of the area around the trees with the weed trimmer.
Mid term goal is to plant low growing ground covers that we can walk on in the paths, while in between the trees will be a combination of ground cover and flowers, with one exception. The morel mushroom spawn my husband got for me for Christmas will be “planted” under one of the elms in the maple grove. He also got giant puffball spawn for me, too, but they like to grow among grass, not under any particular type of tree. I still haven’t quite decided what area I want to inoculate with those, yet. Just somewhere we won’t be going over with the mower.
That is not the only thing I have to figure out where to put. We also have these.
These are the Jiffy pellets we planted the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in, some 2 months ago. The one that had sprouted got transplanted into the old kitchen garden. When a second one suddenly sprouted, almost a week later, I transplanted it a short distance away.
That made me curious enough to look at the rest of the pellets. I haven’t been watering the tray they were in, but when I lifted some of them up, I saw roots! No sprouts, just roots.
So I moved them all onto one of the baking sheets we got to hold the Solo cups we were using to start seeds, and added water.
Almost overnight, more started to sprout.
Currently, there are 7 new sprouts!
Why did it take these so long to sprout? Especially when the ones that were direct sown, in far less ideal conditions, sprouted so quickly??
And what will we do with them? At this point, I don’t think there’s enough growing season for them to fully mature, but now that they’re finally germinating, I don’t want to just toss them. Also, there’s no more room for sunflowers in the old kitchen garden, and the space they would have gone into in the garden got the Mongolian Giants transplanted into it, since these hadn’t sprouted at all at the time, and we thought they were a lost cause.
I think we will transplant them near the Dorinny corn. That wicked frost we had in late May didn’t seem to affect the corn sprouts at the time, but then they disappeared. They are supposed to be a Canadian frost-hardy hybrid, but that was an unusually cold night. While they looked unharmed the next morning, I guess it took a couple of days for the damage to become visible. However, the other corn seeds that hadn’t geminated yet came up soon after, so we will still have Dorinny corn, but it also means we have entire rows in the block with only one or two corn plants in them. I figure, we can make use of the empty space and transplant these sunflowers into them. Sure, they may not reach full maturity, but at least they’ll have a chance. Who knows. We might have a long and mild fall.
Then there are these.
These are the pink celery that should have been started indoors much earlier. They’ll eventually go into a container (or two?), so we can keep them outdoors for most of the growing season, then try using the sun room as a green house to extend their growing season though late fall.
Assuming they survive being transplanted. We’ll see.
All in all, it’s been a really good day. I finally got things done that kept getting delayed, I got to see the kittens, we had a fabulous supper of butter chicken one daughter made while I was mowing, and there’s panna cotta setting in the fridge, made by my other daughter. And tomorrow, we will be celebrating Father’s Day and my younger daughter’s birthday, early, with a pizza night. :-)
The Re-Farmer 