low raised beds

Today’s progress – running around and work accomplished… sorta

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I am so glad my brother said he would take care of my mother’s morning meds today, after we got the call from home care saying they didn’t have anyone to do it!

After feeding the outside cats and doing my morning rounds, I grabbed breakfast, then backed the truck closer to the inner yard. I didn’t want to go too close to the house while loading the back, because of all the very curious cats and kittens!

Speaking of which, I did a head count of all the cats and kittens I could see this morning. I counted several times and got a different number each time, but the highest count was 42. Mostly kittens. I’ve been messaging with the rescue group and mentioned this, commenting on how I can now see why we’re going through kibble so fast. I told them I got four 40 pound bags when disability came in at the end of Septembers. Sixteen days, and we’ve gone through three of them. I had to start the fourth one, today. They asked if I could last a week. I think we might be able to. They also asked about the prices for 40 pounds bags, and I was later able to send them pictures of a couple of receipts from the two different feed stores I go to, and the two different brands I get from them. A rescue would certainly be on the look out for better prices on kibble!

Anyhow…

I am so happy we have that new cover installed on the truck!

We were finally able to take the garbage from cleaning out the sun room to the dump. After I loaded those much bigger bags from the sun room clean up, with my older daughter distracting kittens away from me and the truck as best she could, she helped me get the household garbage out of the old kitchen, where the bags go until we can do a dump run. With all the kittens running around, it’s easier to have one person pass these smaller bags through the screenless window in the storm door to a second person. That way, only one person has to dodge kittens! 😄

This is the first dump run we’ve been able to make since we took the truck in for repair and getting the new cover installed. With the extra garbage from the sun room clean up, it filled the entire space under the cover – and no worries that something would blow away on the highway!

Once the truck was loaded, I was off to the dump. I got there right at 10. There was already a truck parked on the road, waiting for the gate to be unlocked. It turned out that the car in front of me was the attendant! I had it in my head that they opened at nine, forgetting that winter hours starts at the end of October, not the beginning. Glad I didn’t leave for a 9am opening!

By the time I unloaded the truck, there was a whole crowd of vehicles that had come in behind me, including a dump truck with two huge crushed cubes of garbage. !!! I’m happy to say that the area in front of the pit was relatively clear of huge piles of garbage. I’m still nervous about getting a flat tire every time I got in there, though.

That done, it was off to the pharmacy in town. I wanted to get refills before I ran out. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I have my anti-inflammatories, and my stomach meds to protect from the anti-inflammatories. I take the stomach meds only once a day, but can take up one or two anti-inflammatories, up to three times a day. If I were to take the max dose of the anti-inflammatories, I would finish both at the same time. I only need to take a couple of anti-inflammatories once a day, though, so those last a lot longer. I’d actually picked up a refill a while back, but it has disappeared, and I never used any of it. I’m still finishing my first bottle. I suspect a cat knocked the second bottle of the shelf, but I haven’t been able to find it, anywhere! So I had to get another refill.

The stomach meds, though, have already been refilled twice before, and my prescription was done for refills. The pharmacy would have to fax my doctor to get an extension. Unfortunately, today is a Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, which means the earliest the doctor will get the fax is on Tuesday.

Once again, glad I started this now, and not later! I’ll have enough to last until the updated prescription is in. If I’d waited, I would have run out, and I really don’t want to do that. These have saved me from so much pain and stiffness, it still amazes me.

Meanwhile, I was able to get the other refills. While the pharmacy was taking care of that, I headed over to the grocery store to pick up a few things before Thanksgiving.

I didn’t have much on my list, but I did spend time going through the store, looking for something I might want to add to our Thanksgiving dinner. I should have picked something up while in my mother’s town, yesterday! They had much better sales on pies. This store had sales, too, but they were not only more expensive even with the sale price, you had to buy two of them to get the sale price, Otherwise, they were regular price – and there was no way I was paying that much for a small pie!

Taking my time at the grocery store gave the pharmacy the time then needed to fill my prescriptions. They were just bagging it up when I got there. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get the missing one on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, my brother had surprised my mother by showing up to do her morning med assist instead of the home care worker. He also had a couple of Thanksgiving dinners my SIL had packed for her. She was very happy about that and said they would be her lunch and supper! 😊 He stayed long enough to take care of her portable air conditioner and the window set up for the winter. He was done and already here at the farm before I got back from my own errands, so I went over to see how things went. She can be particularly cruel to him.

She turned out to be having a good day today, and was actually mostly kind to him. As we were catching up, he remembered to tell me my mother brought up about me and the farm. I immediately became suspicious, but he told me it was good. She had brought up about how we are paying for the utilities here, and he said yes, plus things like the internet, and fixing things, and so on. She started to say how she wanted to help. I told him, she has teased about helping with the door replacement a couple of times, but I don’t expect her to. He assured me, she’ll help with the door replacement. As her PoA, he could even make it easier for her and do an etransfer, or she can write me a check, if she prefers, but he says she intends to help with the door. She wants this place to be in good shape.

I don’t trust her. She’s burned all of us, at one time or another, by making promised and then backing out at the last minute. She has cost my brother many thousands of dollars by doing that. Even the times she has helped, like with the new roof and replacing the septic ejector, it was because my brother made sure she followed through. She actually tried to back out of paying for the roof like she promised, after the work was done, because she refused to believe it should cost more than a thousand dollars (it was around $15,000, I think), even though we got estimates and showed them to her.

I trust my brother, but there’s only so much he can do, and I don’t trust her.

We shall see. Lord knows, we could use the help after this past very rough couple of years, and my brother knows it.

Meanwhile, as I got caught up with my brother, I came into the house to find my purchases had all magically put themselves away. 😄 That allowed me to go back outside and try and get some work done.

Painting the isolation shelter and a few other things, were priority. It was supposed to be a much warmer day today, but it has been insanely windy.

I did get the painting done, though. The new paint is very noticeably lighter! I don’t care, though. I made no effort to try and keep the new colour off the painted parts. When I find something better to bring in for colour matching, we’ll get another can of paint in the right shade, and give what I got painted today a second coat, after winter.

The sliding windows had to be removed, of course. I was careful when painting the tracks, as I didn’t want them to get filled with pools of paint by accident.

In the first picture, you can see the box to shelter the ramp opening. Later on, I want to flip it upside down to paint the inside, but that’s not a priority. I got the old plant stand painted, and it’s sitting on a couple of broken sidewalk block pieces to keep it above ground.

The second picture is the side where the sliding window can only side towards the front, not over the insulated side wall. There was a bit to do in the front, and a single piece on the back that needed to be done, but most of the painting needed was on the sides.

I did not do the wire mesh door. It was so windy, I was starting to get an ear ache and had to head inside for a while.

After a break, I headed out again. By then, the paint was no longer wet to the touch, so I put the sliding windows back, which you can see in the third picture. Everything was sliding just the way they should!

That cats could now use it, too. Without those windows, the wind was blowing through so much, it actually blew a corner of the hammock loose!

My next project was to continue that garden bed I’d done half of.

Just in time for it to start raining!

I stayed out as a light rain came and went, while thunder rumbled in the distance, until it finally started coming down too hard to stay outside.

The first picture is the “before” shot. The second is how far I got before it started raining too hard.

So. Many. Tree roots. I think I got about half way down that side. Maybe a bit less. The rock bucket is a little over half full.

Once the roots and rocks were cleared, the soil was wonderfully light and fluffy. Perfect to grow in – if we didn’t have to worry about those roots coming back!

I’m glad I got as much done as I did. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back at it. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer, but rainy. We’ll be having our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, anyhow. I plan to pack up a care package for my mother and visit her on Thanksgiving day. She will be getting her Meals on Wheels, though, so it will be for later in the day. Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be quite chilly, with overnight lows reaching below freezing, but then it’s supposed to warm up again. That will be my time to get the beds finished, then start some winter sowing! I’ll have to go through my seed packs and work out where I want to plant things. Some things will be more appropriate for the old kitchen garden, right against the house. Others can be planted well away from the house, as they would get harvested in the fall. Some beds will get the winter sowing marked clearly, so that I can sow other things among them in the spring.

I’m really looking forward to having a better gardening year than this one was!

The Re-Farmer

Getting things done, and which is it?

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I’m happy to day I did actually get some progress done outside.

Last night, however, I was up late doing some research on well pumps and pressure tanks.

I’ve been angsting about our well pump since we moved out here. I’ve never been able to ascertain what “normal” sounds like. Thanks go my brother, we do have a new pump ready and waiting to be installed, but no plumber has dared do it. I explain about it in this post from 2020. Basically, there was a possibility the foot valve was leaking, because the pump would start running, even when no one was using water, and they were concerned that if they switched out the pump, the foot valve could break apart. If that happened, we would have no water at all and could potentially need a new well dug.

Eventually, though, we figured out that we have phantom flush. I just happened to be on the toilet in the wee hours of the morning when I heard the water start going in the tank, to refill it. We replaced all the parts in pieces in the tank, but it was still happening. Finally, I just took the refill out of the overflow, so it filled directly into the tank instead, and the phantom flush stopped. Why it worked, I have no idea, but it did.

So with that problem “solved” (we actually want to replace the toilet, for a number of reasons), we figured it should be safe to replace the tank. We just don’t have a budget for it.

Well, in the last while, the pump sounding more and more grindy,. It runs for a normal length of time and the pressure is good. Most likely, it’s the bearings.

Which is bad enough on its own, but lately it’s been going off way too often. Every time the toilet is flushed, even if it’s been on person right after the other, using it. When someone is in the shower or the washing machine is going, it starts running so often, it may as well not have stopped in between (as I hear the pump starting up again, while my daughter is in the shower). We’re also losing pressure faster, which is always most noticeable in the kitchen, which is the farthest sink from the pump and tanks.

After looking things up, it looks like the pressure tank is starting to lose pressure. There can be a number of reasons for this, but the end result is the same. The tank can’t keep up the pressure, so the pump keeps having to turn on to refill it. Depending on the size, a new pressure tank can cost anywhere from about $200 to over $500. For the amount of water we use, we would need a somewhat larger tank (I think this one is a 7 gallon tank), I’d love to get a 20 gallon tank. That way, if we ever get those water fountains by the barn serviced, we could turn the tap on in the basement, and there would be continuous water available for any animals we might get, or even for the renter’s cows. These fountains are insulated and keep the water warm enough to never freeze, too.

But that’s not an option now, and to meet our needs, we’d want at least the same size as what we have no, no smaller.

This morning, I messaged my brother about it. The tanks I looked at all say “compatible with most deep well pumps”, but he’s the one that knows the system better than anyone living.

He doesn’t think it’s the pressure tank.

He thinks it’s the foot valve. He says it was last replaced 20 years ago.

Well, I don’t know how it can get replaced. The bottom of the well access is a concrete floor, with pipes running to the house through the side near the bottom. I don’t know how the well pipe itself can be accessed. The plumber seemed to think that the concrete on the bottom would have to be broken up. Which doesn’t make sense, if the foot valve was replaced 20 years ago. We should be able to pull it up somehow.

I’ll have to consult my brother about that.

Whether it’s the pressure tank or the foot valve that needs replacing, either way it would be a good time to install the new pump!

All these pumps and tanks are the greatest source of stress for me. Water related or septic related!

So that’s something I really would rather not have to worry about. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it right now, either.

What I did instead was my morning rounds, after feeding the outside cats. While coming back from checking the gate, I realized I was seeing an amazing full moon, and just had to try for some pictures. I even found someplace to steady my phone against, so I could zoom in.

Now that I see the picture on my desktop, it looks so detailed, I’m wondering if the camera automatically “fixed” the photo. That was a bit of a “scandal” some years ago, and that “feature” was supposed to have been dropped.

As I was going through the garden, I checked out the sunflowers. This past frost has killed them off, so any remaining seed heads will never reach maturity. I did, however, find this one…

It is possible that this one has viable seeds in it! I’ve tucked it into the portable greenhouse for now, to dry out some more. It would be nice to try again from our own seeds. Every generation of seeds collected will be better adapted to our local climate.

While the frost killed up most of the things that were exposed (I still haven’t tried peaking under the cover for the winter squash), one thing is doing just fine.

The self seeded peas just keep getting bigger!

Once the morning rounds were done, I waited until things warmed up a bit in the afternoon before continuing with the stuff from the sun room that I had soaking over night. Most of it could be spread out, hung up or set up to dry. Except for the garden mesh. Today turned out to be ridiculously windy, so unraveling those will have to wait. For now, they’re set aside with their bin upside down over them, so they hopefully will not blow away.

That old sheet I found that was repurposed to cover garden beds sure had it’s moments when I tried to hang it on the line. Lots of clothes pins needed! Sure dried fast, though. 😄

I’m so glad I though to put that old roof panel onto the shelf shelter! This little feral kitten could enjoy a warm sun spot while completely protected from the wind.

Eventually, I got things done as much as I could until things dried. After my daughter and I get back from her appointment in the city, I’m hoping to finally put everything in bins with lids, and get them out of the yard again! I need that space to paint the isolation shelter.

The next thing to work on was that garden bed I’d started on a couple days ago.

*sigh*

With all the years of amending the soil, prepping these beds for the winter should only have taken about 15 minutes each. Half an hour, if the rocks and weeds were really bad.

Instead, I’m fighting those !$%&$! tree roots!

Where I’d stopped, last time, had a bit root sticking up and I had to use the loppers to cut that. Then I just kept working my way down that side of the bed. In the first picture, you can see some of the roots I was exposing as I worked my way down. By this point, the soil was so dense with roots, I actually had a hard time pushing the garden fork through it!

The second picture was taken when I finally got that side done. I’d emptied the rocks bucket before I started, so these just rocks I’d picked today. When I stopped last time, I had worked past the half way point, so this was from about a third of one side of the bed. That pile I raked up at the end, near the bucket, is almost all tree roots. Very few normal weeds.

That last photo was taken from the unworked side of the bed. There were a could of bigger roots that I pulled up, but I won’t be able to get the rest out until I’ve worked the other side of the bed.

None of this was there when I planted the peas and carrots in it in the spring. All those roots are just one summer’s growth.

My mother keeps giving me a hard time for being such a bad gardener. Meanwhile, it’s the self seeded trees she deliberately left, after transplanting the raspberries they’d been growing through, that is causing me more problems that all the rocks! The roots are growing into where the soil is easiest to grow in – the soil I’ve been amending to grow vegetables in. So they’re filling the beds and taking up all the water and nutrients, and I’m not even finding it until the end of the season, after the damage is done. This, on top of dealing with drought conditions and smoke this year.

Trees are not always good thing.

One of these days, I’ve got to snag a daughter and our cutting equipment, and take down the entire row of elms and maples. Then we’ll have to find a way to make sure they don’t grow back! Otherwise, even as we build these up into high raised beds, the roots will still find their way up and into the growing zone.

It’s taking a lot longer than it should, but at least I did get some progress in today. Whether I manage to get any done tomorrow, after we get back from the city, will depend on how much daylight we have left.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

How things went today

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’ll start with the more pleasant things!

First up, while doing my morning rounds, I spotted something very white in the wood chip pile, from quite a distance. Check these out!

The first picture was of a group of three very round mushrooms – I thought they were puffballs at first, until I saw the stems. The next three pictures are with my hand for perspective – then I found a fourth one, off to the side!

I have no idea if they are edible, and have no intention of finding out.

As I was heading inside, I found this adorable cuddle puddle.

Two of them! The smallest kittens really like to pile together.

Once the morning round were done, I was able to get a few things done before heading to my mother’s. My brother came out today, but he had to focus on replacing the radiator on one of his tractors that got damaged last fall, then try to get it going. Days are short, so I just popped over to say hello before I headed out.

When I got to my mother’s, she was all “prepared” for me. I barely got through the door! She had ice cream buckets of tomatoes she wanted me to take home. One of her neighbours in her building has had a great tomato year in their little garden plot and has been leaving boxes of them in the common room for people to help themselves. My mother keeps taking more than she needs for herself, because apparently no one else is taking any, and she doesn’t want them to go to waste.

So… she gives them to me.

While I was getting the two ice cream buckets of tomatoes out from under her table for her, I saw her collection of jugs for her drinking and cooking water, so I refilled those right away.

There were other errands she wanted me to do, but I told her I’d do them after I’ve put away her groceries.

She didn’t have a list, so I sat down to start that with her. It took a while, because she kept wanting to go on about other things. There’s one home care worker she has issues with in particular. For a basic med assist, they are supposed to be there for 5 minutes, making sure she takes her medication before they leave. The morning assist is for 10 minutes, as they are supposed to help with emptying the commode or helping apply her Voltaren to her back. This one rushes to put the meds in the little bowl she has for them, to make sure they’re all there (sometimes, they can get caught in the packaging), locked the box up and leaves without making sure my mother takes her meds. Apparently, she’s been so rough with the lock box, she ended up knocking my mom’s phone off its charger and just left it where it fell.

My mother was also angry about her new schedule. She has five evenings, which is two med assists done by the same person, plus four mornings, done by someone else (out of a 2 week schedule) listed as “unfilled”. I tried to explain to her that they have to have the schedules out by a certain time, so if they don’t have someone for a specific date or time, they have to list it as “unfilled”. That doesn’t mean they won’t find someone. Just that they hadn’t, before the deadline. My mother thinks it means people are going to show up because they’ve… called in sick, in advance? She doesn’t understand how scheduling works.

It did give me a chance to try and talk to my mother about things she can do to try and get herself into a nursing home faster. I tried to explain that, because she’s only getting med assists, they basically view her as being able to care for herself. But if she takes advantage of the other assists they have available – meal assists, bathing assists, dressing assisted, etc. – that would go a long way to helping her get in faster.

She just got angry at me. She doesn’t trust the home care workers (there’s one that she says is really good at her job, and that’s the one that helped care for my father, before he went into the nursing home) and doesn’t want them touching her or preparing her meals. I tried to explain why she needed to get it anyhow and, besides, if she were in a nursing home, she’d be having that all done for her, anyhow. To which she said, in a nursing home, she would have “professionals”. I told her, the home care workers are “professionals”. They may or may not be good at their jobs, but they get training, first.

At one point she told me she had been talking to a woman that used to live in our little hamlet, that I went to school with. Her mother lived in the same building as my mother, having moved in a few years ago. It turns out her mother is in a nursing home now! She was visiting a friend and stopped to chat with my mother. As my mother told her how much she wants to be in a nursing home, she was told to try falling down! Which is pretty much what I was thinking, but hadn’t mentioned. My mother is constantly afraid of falling down, so she is super careful not to. If, however, she did have a fall, she’d have to use her Lifeline to get help, because she certainly couldn’t get up again on her own. They could call her an ambulance (and would call me to inform me of any issues). Chances are if that happened, my mother would end up going straight to a nursing home or supportive living, somewhere.

She did mention about the last time she used her Lifeline to talk to someone about her she was feeling. At the end of it, she was asked if there was anything else they could do for her. She said, help me get into a nursing home! The person on the Lifeline said they would talk to someone higher up about it.

I don’t know what they can do, but if there’s something, it would help! Lord knows, my mother isn’t willing to do anything herself that would get her in faster. We keep telling her things that would help (like getting other home care assistance that they have available), but she just refuses. I can understand why, but she doesn’t understand that she is sabotaging herself. She much prefers to complain and expect other people to do things for her, not do them herself. This is not a new thing. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember.

After much circular conversation, I did manage to get a shopping list written down for her. Some of it was “see how it looks” or “depends on the price” type stuff. She needed more of her Voltaren, too, so a trip to the pharmacy was also in order.

I was able to find everything she wanted, and even got her a pumpkin pie as a treat I was pretty sure she would be happy with. Either she’d be happy, or she’d be angry. Thankfully, she was in a good mood, and was very happy to see the pie!

Once everything was put away, she insisted I sit with a cup of tea for a while before I finished doing things like sweeping her floor, taking care of her garbage, etc. Then she foisted a bag of aluminum foil she saved from her Meals on Wheels packaging onto me, together with the tomatoes! She’s been carefully washing and setting aside the foil each part of her meal is wrapped in. From the amount in the bag, it’s been probably a year’s worth of foil! She thought I might be able to use them in the garden (??) or something. I told her, I could add them to our aluminum recycling. We save up our aluminum until it’s worth the trip to the salvage yard. She was quite happy with that idea.

All in all, the visit with my mom was pretty good. Just one racist rant I had to distract away from, and during the times she did get angry because she didn’t like what she was being told, it wasn’t quite the personal attacks on me such things often become. It was actually a pretty good visit, as far as that goes with my mother!

That done, I had a request from my husband, so I went to the town we usually go to for our local shopping. The difference in prices between grocery stores was worth the extra driving.

Thankfully, fruit cake was not part of his shopping list.

I could not believe how expensive these fruitcakes have become! Not that long ago, seeing them at prices above $7 was considered expensive!

After I got the few things on my husband’s list and made a stop at the gas station, it was time for home.

My brother was still working on his tractor, so I headed over for a quick hello and to update him a bit about how it went with Mom. Then I went in to change into my grubbies to do some work in the garden, instead of in the sun room, while there was still light enough.

I made sure to water the winter squash and cover them for the night, first. We’re supposed to get rain, but it’s also supposed to get cold enough that I’m not sure the winter squash would survive it. They might be kept covered for several days, if the 7 day forecast is at all accurate. The next three nights in particular will probably put an end to the eggplant, peppers and summer squash, so if there’s anything to bring in an ripen indoors, tomorrow will be the day to do it.

I need to get more garden beds ready for winter sowing, though, and today I started working on the bed the carrots and peas were grown in.

*sigh*

I got a little more than a quarter of it done. As I was working my way down one side, I kept getting tangled up in tree roots. It was a while before I found root they were all coming from and got that pulled out. Then I found more from another root!

It was starting to get dark, so I didn’t want to start fighting with roots I couldn’t quite find yet, so I decided to call it a night. For all the work done in these beds, particularly when they got shifted to their permanent locations, getting them ready for the winter should be easy. All of these roots I’m hitting were not there in the spring. I’m blown away by how far they are extending from the trees, and how big they are.

According to the weather apps, we’re supposed to get rain all night and all through tomorrow, with heavy rain warning. So it might be a couple of days before I can continue. The overnight lows that had been forecast to drop below freezing have changed to just at freezing. Hopefully, the cover will be enough for the winter squash. After that one cold night, we’re actually supposed to get decent, if cool, weather again. That would be a good time to get the garlic in.

Well, we’ll see what actually happens! I’ll take the mild weather for as long as possible!

The Re-Farmer

Work in the garden is good for the heart – especially when our mothers aren’t.

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had two main goals for today. The first was to take care of my mother’s morning med assist and do her grocery shopping. The second was to get more progress cleaning up in the garden beds.

My mother turned out to be having one of “those” days.

It actually started off okay. She was in bed and not wanting to get up. I can’t say I blame her! She told me she feels like she just wants to lie in bed all the time, these days.

I got her morning meds out. I took out her other type if inhaler, too – the one that home care workers aren’t allowed to give her. I’d already talked to her about the doctor removing it from her med assist list for home care, and she doesn’t need to take it anymore, but when I’d called last night to let her know I’d be coming over, she told me she decided she would keep taking it after all.

When I brought it out, I told her again, she doesn’t need to use it. The doctor removed it from her prescription list. The experiment was to see if she had asthma, and she clearly doesn’t. It won’t hurt her to take it, but it’s not helping her and she doesn’t need to.

Usually, my mother is all about trying to drop her medications because she doesn’t think they’re helping. If they were helping, why does she feel this, or that, or this other thing? when her meds are for completely different things. Now she has a medication that was a trail, it isn’t helping her, she doesn’t need it… and suddenly she wants to keep taking it?

I told her I’d planned to take it to the pharmacy for proper disposal, but in the end I just left it out of the lock box for her to take or not take. It only has 28 doses left in it, so 14 days of daily use, if she keeps it up.

She had not made her shopping list, so after she took her medications, I went through her fridge and cupboards and we talked about what she needed before sitting down and making her list with her. Then she gave me cash in an envelope; I always make sure that the change and receipt is put back into it for her to go over at her leisure, later on.

All of that went smoothly, and I was soon back and putting everything away for her.

My brain is already trying to wipe things out, but I think it was the spaghetti squash that started it.

This is what WP AI image generator thinks my mother looks like.

My mother no longer has a garden plot, officially, but she did grow a spaghetti squash along the fence outside her window, which produced for her a single spaghetti squash. She’d already eaten half of it, but struggles with the hard skin, so she offered the other half to me. I politely declined, saying I was the only one in the family that likes spaghetti squash.

That lead to a lecture on how we’re all so fussy, and that it just needs to be cooked right (she still thinks I don’t know how to cook), etc.

Then she offered me some of the seeds she’d saved from her spaghetti squash. Again, I politely declined (I just told her I’m the only one that likes it; why would I grow something no one else wants to eat?) and told her I have lots of seeds.

While all this conversation was going on, I started sweeping her floor and doing other little things, as I usually try to do for her. She kept going on about the garden, asking me about how our garden is. I had told her before that it was a messed up year, but I told her again, things were really behind this year. We had the spring with hot days in May, but too cold nights. Then we had drought conditions, heat waves, and wildfire smoke. So the garden really sufferred.

Oh, I’m the only one complaining about the smoke! No one else is! (I wasn’t complaining, just listing it among other things) I have two daughters to help me! I should have a big garden, etc. etc. etc. I should have so much food from the garden, etc. etc. I told her, we did have some, just not much, and even tried to show her pictures of the winter squash and said I have been managing to keep them from freezing. Freezing? she asked. I guess she forgot that we’ve already had frost, and that our nights are getting pretty cold.

Then she just flat out said: I’m a bad gardener

My response was, And you’re very rude.

She agreed.

???

It was around that time, when I’d just finished sweeping her floor and was about to start emptying all her garbage cans, that the door opened and my brother walked in! He’d been on the way to the farm and decided to swing past my mother’s place to see if I was still there. He saw a Caravan parked, and knew the courtesy vehicle I had was a Caravan, so he decided to pop in.

He barely walked in and gave her a hug hello when she started going at him, immediately asking about pictures of his grand kids. My brother has shown her digital pictures, but she wants something she can tack onto her wall. The problem is, the last time he gave her prints of the grand kids, the first thing she did was ask if one of his grandsons was Downs Syndrome or something. Which neither of them are, but she didn’t like how one of them looked and basically said he looked retarded.

Needless to say, he’s not eager to give her more photos of his grandsons.

I don’t even know if he has a printer anymore. My sister’s the one that’s into that stuff, so she’s got a high end printer. I think my mother even paid for it. Anyhow, I tried to distract her away from that, then continued into empty her garbage cans into one bag then, emptied her commode.

Which is how I missed the first part of what they’d started talking about. I didn’t get the straight of it until much later, here at the farm, as we filled in my SIL.

It turns out our vandal had showed up at my mother’s place on Tuesday. The day the mental health assessor was interviewing my mother. It seems he walked right into her apartment and immediately started ranting at her, right in front of a stranger, about how she gave the farm to me (????), then started saying nasty things about my one of my daughters, (getting them mixed up, apparently) that were complete fabrications. He hasn’t seen either of them in years. Someone, however, seems to be telling him things (like my younger daughter having a PCOS beard), and then he’s going from there and just making things up. He didn’t even use my daughter’s correct name! Whichever one he meant to be talking about, anyhow.

My mother, however, believed him. ?!?! She started saying that it was true. As if she knows any better?

I’d asked my mother before about how that meeting with the mental health assessor went, and she just brushed her off in disgust, saying she wasn’t any use, and had told my mother something along the lines of, “there are people worse off than you”. Which is true, but pissed my mother off. My mother did NOT mention that our vandal showed up.

Or that the interview was cut short and that the assessor left with our vandal.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Red flag time!

Now that we know this happened, both my brother and I plan to phone the mental health assessor. If I’d known earlier, I would have already phoned her by now!

Meanwhile, in the middle of all this, my mother found the time to ask us to take her angel here to the farm. Years ago, my brother bought her a resin garden decor angel that my mother just loves. She’s been doing a lot of “when I go up-up, who is going to take this? Who is going to take that?” After confirming that no one else among my siblings wanted it, I assured her it would go to the farm. It’s made to be outdoors, so I said I would set it up somewhere nice.

My brother and I then joked that we should set it up facing the gate, so our vandal would see it and maybe be reminded that the things he’s doing isn’t particularly Godly. Or whatever.

Today, my mother brought it up and asked if we could take it.

That was our cue.

My poor brother was there for less than 10 minutes, and got jumped all over right from the moment he came in. He didn’t even have time to finish giving her a hello hug before she started, and he was more than happy to leave right away.

In bringing the angel out, he noticed there was a crack under one wing. That led to a whole other thing with my mother, because she didn’t know it was there. My brother suggested it had fallen over, but she said it had never fallen. We quickly distracted away from guessing, though. Later on, my brother said it probably happened when her apartment was being fumigated, and someone knocked it over. She’s already convinced the exterminator stole things from her, so my brother wasn’t about to bring that up around her!

We headed out together, with me taking her garbage out and my brother carrying the angel to load into the van. I used the fob to open the rear gate for him before going out the other door to the building’s garbage bin.

As I came around, my brother was trying to figure out how to get the angel into the back. One of the third row of seats would need to be folded down. As he was looking around, I decided to open up the side door to try and see from the other side. I had the key fob in my hand as I did.

I accidentally hit the panic button on the fob – or so I thought. The horn started honking an alarm.

I tried hitting the panic button again, but it only changed the pattern of honking. I couldn’t see how to shut the honking off, and the buttons I pushed didn’t work! My brother has seen this type of square key fob before, so I showed it to him, but he didn’t know either. He just started smashing buttons, and it stopped.

Well, the entire neighbourhood now knew we were there!

In the end, I figured out that I hadn’t accidentally hit the panic button. I had tried to open the door, while it was still locked. I didn’t even know the van had an alarm, but with the rear gate open, I thought the other doors were unlocked as well for some reason. So I had set off the car alarm. I think it stopped when my brother hit the unlock button while button smashing!

At least it worked.

We then headed off here to the farm.

I brought the angel to the door, messaging a daughter to bring it in. Because of the cracked wing, it will need to be repaired and sealed before we set it up outside. Otherwise, water will get inside it.

I joined my brother and SIL in their “new” camper – it’s the first time I’ve been inside it – and we had a chance to catch up my SIL on how things went. My brother and I both needed to decompress, that’s for sure! There was more than what I mention here, of course. The main concern was our vandal showing up like that – and leaving with the mental health assessor!

After we had a visit, I left them to their work. They needed to winterize the camper and the trailer, and would only be around for a few hours. I headed in to grab lunch, change and get to work in the garden.

Which was very therapeutic. Part way through, my younger daughter even came out to check on me and make sure I was okay, after that visit, which was much appreciated.

My focus for today was on the beds with carrots in them, both winter sown and spring sown. I started on the East yard garden bed, removing the bamboo stake trellis that was holding up the radish bushes, first.

After the trellis was removed, I pulled all the remaining radishes – this bed had quite a few go to seed – and lettuces. Some of the lettuce were going to seed, so I broke off the tops and set them aside to collect the seeds later. Everything else went onto the compost pile.

While this bed had the same root vegetable mix as the high raised bed, it also had lettuce seeds added. Those grew so well, they became a weed and choked other things out. I was curious to see how the carrots did, under those conditions.

The answer is “surprisingly well”.

They’re mostly small, and some of the smallest ones at the end just got added to the compost pile, but it was actually better than I expected. There were even a few of the orange “Napoli” carrots in there. Those seeds were pretty old, so I wasn’t sure what to expect with them.

Once the carrots were harvested, I went over the entire bed, loosening the soil and pulling weeds, none of which could be added to the compost pile, or they’d start growing again!

There was one carrot that had gone to seed, so I gave it a support stake and left it to finish maturing.

The soil was pretty compacted and hard to clear. I know there’s still lots of weeds in there, but I plan to amend the soil before any winter sowing gets done, so there will be time to get more of them.

From there, I moved on to the high raised bed.

Again, I pulled the few radish bushes that were left in there, then started on harvesting the carrots. These ones were not crowed out, like the other winter sown bed was, and I could really see a difference!

I was pleasantly surprised by how many orange Napoli carrots there were.

Once the carrots were out and I started weeding, I found these…

A couple of those beets are supposed to be white, but they look more yellow than white. Then there are the teeny onions. I’d picked what beets we had, earlier, but these had no greens left (thanks to the deer), so I’d missed them. As for the onions, I’d included onion seeds in the mixed, but only a couple managed to form proper bulbs. With these ones, I could potentially use them as sets for next year.

Once again, I left a carrot gone to seed. It had branches sprawling all over, but now they’re held together in the support stake. I’ve already cut some of the seed heads off a while back, as they were fully dry, and now there’s more that I could probably harvest now.

The next bed to work on was the spring sown bed. Being in an almost ground level bed, it was easier. I could just go along each side with the garden fork to loosen the soil, first.

Which was much needed. Compaction is a definite problem.

The first carrots I picked where the Uzbek Golden carrots using our home made seed tape.

I’m rather surprised by how well these did.

There was also a surprise orange carrot among them! I also noticed that some of the yellow carrots had a more orange caste to them as well.

The other side were the Atomic Red carrots.

With these ones, we’ve been thinning by harvesting, as needed. That gave them space to get bigger… but they didn’t get much longer! These are supposed to be a deep red and quite long. Instead, we have light orange and stubby.

Odd.

I didn’t continue cleaning up the bed, though. That’s for another day. This took several hours – my brother and SIL headed out before I even finished the first bed, it took so long – and it was time to stop.

Not before gathering the harvest and giving it a quick hose down, first.

A lot of them are pretty small, which will make them harder to work with, but that’s a pretty decent amount of carrots. Plus a few bonus beets!

I was glad to have the work to do. Physical labour goes a long way to working out any stress and, after being with my mother this morning, I had plenty of stress to work off!

Now, I need to head back outside. It’s getting dark, and we’re in for a cold enough night that the winter squash need to be covered again.

But I’m such a bad gardener, don’t ya know!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: pumpkins planted

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last year, I picked up the free pumpkinfest seeds early enough to start them indoors. I picked them up just a few days ago, so there’s no time for that, this year!

While we have been getting a few rainfalls, off and on, and don’t expect more rain until tomorrow morning, our province is actually getting special weather alerts for possible funnel clouds. I got messages from my brother, saying they had rain pretty much all day, with occasional massive downpours. It’s been knocking his internet out often enough that he ended up linking to his phone to access the internet, so he could work.

From home.

On a Sunday.

Because my brother just never seems to stop working. Ever.

He’s always been like this, even as a kid. How he hasn’t burnt out, long ago, I have no idea!

While I had completely forgotten about the pumpkin seeds when I was working on the bed earlier, it was probably a good thing, in the end, given that I started to get rained on before I finished what I did remember to plant!

So here is how the bed looks now.

The row with the transplanted onions had enough empty space for four seeds, and the last one was planted in the remaining space of the sunflower row. I used the plastic collars to mark where the seeds would go, then planted one in each collar. They may not all germinate. Last year they have out 3 seeds per packet. I pre-germinated them, and they all sprouted within a day, so I do know they give out very healthy seeds.

I had some stove pellets left in the bag I’ve been using in other garden beds, and I finished it off here, including adding a few into the collars as well. Then everything got watered, even though it just rained. The collars got partially filled with water a couple of times, to make sure the pumpkin seeds got thoroughly soaked. The watering was also to get the stove pellets to absorb moisture and start breaking up into sawdust. They will do as a light mulch for now. Later in the season, after things are fairly big, more mulch will be added.

I don’t expect to use the mulch that I pulled off this morning. In the photo, you can see it raked onto the taller grass. That is where this bed’s twin is going to be built. Once things are dry enough to drag out the weed trimmer, I’ll clean out that area, trimming it as close to the soil as possible, then lay cardboard down on it, in preparation for building the next bed. The mulch I’ve set aside will eventually get buried in the new bed.

So I think I can NOW say the garden is officially in! 😄😂 There’s still lots of work to do, of course, but what needed to be planted is now in the ground.

🍾🥂🎉

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: setting up a trellis, and transplanting melons

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Once the frame for the low raised bed was finally assembled, it was time to set up a trellis, then do some transplanting.

This time, I got to use actual new, never before used by anyone else, metal posts to hold the wire! I had picked up four of these posts at Dollarama, and they seem like a really good product.

Rather than set the posts right at the freshly attached end logs, I set the end posts about a foot in from the ends, which turned out to be roughly 15′ apart in the 18′ bed, so the other two were set about 5′ apart. And by “feet”, I mean literally my booted feet. 😁

At the end closer to those trees we need to get rid of, I had to actually dig around with the garden fork to pull up the rocks I kept hitting, trying to push the post in!

Then I went to the old squash tunnel and snagged the last 2″ square wire mesh. There’s still one section with chicken wire on it. I find the 6 sided shapes bend and stretch out of shape too much for my liking, so I’m not sure what I’ll use that for.

The square wire mesh was about 18′ ong, so there was excess to work with.

One of the things about these posts is that they have hooks on them to hold stuff like this, which you can see in the second image of the slideshow above. There’s four hooks like that, with the opening facing up, along the top 2/3 or so, then two in the bottom third, facing the other way.

Very convenient, except it was remarkably difficult to get all of them hooked up at the same time!

It was still much easier to get the wire mesh up evenly than on the salvaged T posts I used for the pea trellis.

Once the trellis was done, it was time to finally do some transplanting!

Once again, the trellis posts dividing the bed into 3 sections came in handy, as I had three types of melon to transplant. There were four each of the honeydew and Sarah’s Choice (cantaloupe type) melons. Then there were the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon. There are two larger plants, plus one really tiny one I probably shouldn’t have bothered with, but I can’t just toss the poor thing!

I decided to transplant all of them melons on the East side of the trellis, so they will get the morning sun, and the three watermelons would be on the south end of the bed.

As with the winter squash, I set up collars made from 4L water bottles that my husband uses for his CPAP humidifier. Those are turning out to be very handy!

Once I spaced out each collar and set them into the soil, just enough to keep them from blowing away, I added a handful of manure into each. That got well mixed into the very, very dry soil, the collars reset in place, and then I made low trenches in the soil around them, to drain water down towards the roots.

Then everything got a thorough soaking. Which got sucked up like a sponge, so I did it again.

Even with filling the collars with water, as well as the trenches around them, when I dug down to plant the melons, I was still reaching super dry soil!

Everything got another thorough watering, once the transplants were in.

Then I grabbed the wagon and headed to the outer yard to rake up grass clippings to use as mulch. Thankfully, that area is far enough away that it’s not filled with Chinese elm seeds! The inner yard is practically drifted with them.

Once the melons were surrounded by mulch, it got yet another thorough watering. I wanted to make sure the mulch was wet all the way through, not just on top.

As these get bigger, I plan to train them up the trellis as best I can. Last year, we had a 4″ plastic trellis net, and it really sagged under the weight of the vines, so I’m hoping this set up will work better. I will probably still have to add cross pieces at the tops. The wire extends about 4″ above the top hook on the posts, so I should be able to weave supports through the mesh fairly easily. The posts also have holes in them so, if necessary, I can use twine or something to stake them out at the ends, so the weight of melons doesn’t pull them towards the middle.

That took care of one half of the bed.

I have decided that I will plant our Spoon tomatoes in the other half.

Several of them are staring to bloom now! These are indeterminants that can grow quite tall, so they will have their own individual supports, plus the trellis, to hold them up. I’ve got nine Spoon tomato transplants, so there will be room to plant something else with them, if I wanted to. Some bush beans, perhaps.

I’m hoping to be able to get them in tomorrow morning, since the bed is pretty much ready, and there’s even extra mulch waiting in the wagon for them. My daughter has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and we’re planning on leaving early. Chances are, we’ll need to go to the pharmacy after her appointment, and I will likely take advantage of the driving around to do some of the shopping we weren’t able to do during our stock up shops, so it might be a long day of driving around! Which means the morning will be pretty much the only time I’ll have available to get any more transplants in.

After the Spoon tomatoes are in, that leaves the peppers and eggplant to be planted in the old kitchen garden, and the rest of the tomatoes should fit in one of the low raised beds in the East yard. The other low raised bed will have our short season corn planted in it, with more bush beans planted in between.

By the time those are in, the elm seeds should be done dropping, and I can finally do something about that bed along the chain link fence. The mesh tunnel may be all bent up, but it’s still doing its job of keeping the bed from being suffocated by seeds. I’ll be replanting the bed with my remaining packet of Hopi Black Dye sunflower seeds, and pole beans.

I might skip planting into the chimney block planters at the other section of chain link fence entirely, this year. I’ll have to see how badly the elm roots have invaded. There’s still the trellis bed that still needs work, but can be planted in before that’s done. Plus, the bed in the old kitchen garden that will be getting wattle weave walls added. It could probably be planted in before that’s done, too.

It feels like I’m way behind on getting the direct sowing done, but it’s only June 2 today – our previous average last frost date. Which means most things couldn’t actually be safely direct sown until after today, anyhow! We had so many insanely hot days, lately, everything feels off.

Having said that, it’s June, now.

Half the year is pretty much gone already.

Good grief.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: finally assembled!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, my goal was to at least plant the melons in the main garden area. Before I could do that, however, the bed needed to be prepared.

Not the soil, though. That was already done.

The frame that never got fully assembled last year.

First, though, I had to be able to access it, which meant using the corded weed trimmer, so I had to wait until everything was dry enough from this morning’s rain.

After weeding the bed earlier, I covered it with plastic to keep out windblown seeds, cats and hopefully bake any new weeds that tried to come up. Considering the paths were so full of dandelions in full seed, I was glad of it!

I did pause while I was doing that to check on the carrots. I’d seen some starting to come up yesterday, but with how hot it was expected to get, I left them covered to keep them moist and cool. Today, I took the boards off and set them on the sides of the bed to protect the soil from erosion and digging cats.

For the frame, all I needed to do was attached the 4′ ends to the sides. I debated between attaching them to the ends of the logs, which would make the beds slightly longer, or to set them on top of the logs. I decided to set them on top.

The first step, after moving the 4′ logs away, was to move the soil away from the ends to make space. Then the end logs were lined up with the sides logs, so I could use the width of the side logs to make a stop cut for the section that I needed to remove. The first one worked out pretty good.

Once the sections were cut out, I set the log on the sides and used it to make stop cuts on the side logs to match the width of the ends.

From there, it was cutting away enough wood that, once the end log was in place, the top would be about the same height as the side logs. That part took a bit more fussing and more removal of material.

Once it was done and the end log was in place, there was quite a gap under it. I used the bits and pieces of wood that was cut off to fill the space, rather than just fill it with soil. I didn’t want to waste good soil!

Then I repeated the process on the other side.

Which I did a really crappy job on! But, they fit together, and that’s all I really needed! Once again, the scrap bits of wood were pushed under the log at the end to fill in the space, before the soil at both ends was leveled.

The whole thing was more of a pain then it should have been, but it is what it is!

The only thing that needs to be done now is to drill holes through the corners, then drive a rod through to secure the logs together. Right now, the end logs could get knocked of fairly easily.

In time, more logs will be added to make this bed taller, but for now, the priority is to frame all the beds and make the new trellis beds. In time, I hope to make all the beds about 4 logs high (assuming logs the same size as now). That’s what the high raised bed is, and I’m finding that height ideal to work with.

It’s going to get a few years to get to that point, though! There’s only so many dead trees we can harvest for this. That and having nice, straight 18′ lengths for the sides is not as easy as you’d think!

This one, however, is finally done!

It only took about a year… !!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: herbs are in

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It’s hard to be having a heat wave like we are now, and have to think about last frost dates before planting things! Our average last frost date was June 2, but this year it’s listed as a range from May 28-31.

On the one hand, I’ve been eyeballing the long range forecasts. They tend to change often, sometimes multiple times in a day, but we are no longer having predictions of overnight temperatures below freezing. So far, nothing lower than 5C/41F in the overnight lows expected in early June.

On the other hand, I’ve been eyeballing the dandelions. If you’ve been following Maritime Gardening, you may have heard his way of using the stages of dandelions to judge when to plant things. When the greens emerge, the soil is warm enough to plant cold hardy seeds like peas and spinach. When the flowers are blooming, the soil is warm enough to plant things that need a bit more warmth, but can still handle a night of frost, like brassicas. When the dandelions go to seed, the soil is warm enough to plant everything else.

Our dandelions have been blooming for a while, and lots are starting to go to seed.

So I should be able to direct sow or transplant pretty much everything right now, but I still want to be able to cover things if we do get a frost.

Since I didn’t want to render myself immobile again, today I decided to work on the tiny raised bed garden and transplant the herbs I bought a few weeks back.

This bed got prepped in the fall, so there wasn’t much it needed – other than finally reinforcing the cover that cats keep lying on!

I took the cover over to the garage, along with some leftover pieces of hula hoop, which is what is already being used in the cover, to add to it. I got one installed, but when I tried to set up the other, it kept snapping on me. Thankfully, I had a piece of pipe of some kind my brother had passed on to me, along with lumber, shelving and numerous other small items he knew I would find uses for. It was perfect for the job, and I still have some left over. There was also a short bamboo garden stake that I wove through the chicken wire across the top. That will both support the wire (and the weight of cats) and make it easier to carry the cover.

Then it was time to ready the soil. It had a grass clipping mulch that was set aside, then I used my little hand cultivator to loosen the soil so I could better remove the rhizomes. Unfortunately, I was also finding tree roots; this time, from the nearby ornamental crab apple. I think there’s actually a large root running under the bed, but if there is, it’s deep enough it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s the little capillary roots that can become an issue!

After a few years of amending this bed, the soil was really nice and fluffy, already. I did amend it more with the rehydrated coconut coir, plus some manure. The soil was insanely dry, so I made sure to give it a very thorough watering once the amendments were mixed in.

I then set the pots in and moved them around until I figured out where the herbs would go. I’ve got English Thyme and Golden Yellow Thyme that are kitty corner from each other. The other corners have oregano and Greek oregano. In the middle, closer to the walking onions, is lemon balm, with the basil across from it. Once transplanted, they got another watering.

After they were transplanted, I carefully scattered the mulch around them, making sure it was under their leaves and stems.

Then it got another watering.

Last of all, the cover was set in place. No kitties will be rolling around on or digging these up!

The next area I plan to work on is the wattle weave bed. The tiny strawberries in there are blooming up a store right now, so I’m not going to transplant them until the fall. They don’t take up a lot of space. I think there is enough room to plant both the eggplants and peppers in this bed. We’ve grown both in there before, and they did surprisingly well, so that should work out.

We’re going into the city for our first stock up shopping trip tomorrow, though, so that won’t happen for a couple of days. The transplants are all looking really strong and healthy this year – even the ones that got dumped upside down when the wind knocked the greenhouse half over! If things work out, we should be able to get all the transplanting and direct sowing done over the next week or two. I’ll be quite happy when that is all finally done!

I have to keep telling myself. It’s still only May. With the weather we’ve been having, it feels like I’m behind on things, but I’m actually ahead!

Hopefully, this will be a good growing year.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: reclaiming a bed

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

By the time I finished prepping and planting in the flower bed, things were getting pretty hot out, but I had one more bed I wanted to work on.

The low raised bed with the frame that still need to be assembled.

This is where we had winter squash with trellised peas and beans, last year. It has been completely taken over by dandelions!

It took quite a while, just to loosen the soil enough to get started. Compaction was also an issue.

And rocks. A surprising number of rocks, considering it’s been picked over and cleared of rocks every years for several years now! Then the soil needed to be broken up more, section by section, so the weeds could be pulled without leaving behind any roots. Not that I can get every root, but at least it’s better!

The dandelions, with their deep tap root, was one thing. The crab grass with their endless rhizomes weren’t as bad as I thought they would be.

Finding elm tree roots all the way at the far end of the bed, though… that’s just insane! The bed is 18′ long, and it’s another 7 feet or so from the North end of the bed to the tree line. These were clearly Chinese elm roots, too.

Those trees have got to go!

Once the weeds were pulled and raked away, the soil surface got raked a couple of times, too. The first time, using the thatching rake, which pulled out more rocks and weed roots. Once that was cleared and leveled, I went over it with a fan rake, and that found more rocks and weeds, too!

After the bed was cleared and leveled, I got the roll of plastic that had been used to solarize the bed the peas and carrots are now in and covered the freshly cleared soil. This will help warm the soil up more – and keep it from getting too cold overnight – in preparation for planting or transplanting. I haven’t decided what to put in here, yet. Nothing will go in here until the beginning of June, though, so any weeds that were missed will have a chance to start growing again, and will be easer to get pull when it’s time to remove the plastic.

With this bed done, I was also done for the day!

At least, I was when it came to preparing things in the garden.

After chatting with my SIL, who was mowing the outer yard at the time for a while, I went to check on the walnuts that were planted. Things were getting pretty dry, so I filled the wagon with watering cans and buckets of water and gave them a thorough watering. I watered the Korean Pine, too. We really need to remember to water the outer yard transplants more often. Especially with our upcoming heat and lack of rain. We’re not expecting rain until the first week or two of June.

At least they’re no longer predicting snow and freezing overnight temperatures!

I’m very happy with how much progress I got today. There’s still lots to do, and we’ll have to work around the hottest hours. I just have to remind myself not to over do it, or I’ll end up losing several days due to pain while recovering.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: reclaiming and replanting the flower bed

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

So the winter sown flower bed was a total failure. If any seeds did survive the winter, I saw no sign of them. While the bed did get covered with plastic, eventually, once that mulch was removed in the spring, it became a favourite spot for the cats to roll around on!

And did in, of course. 🫤

I decided it should be safe to direct sow more flowers into this bed.

The Dwarf Jewel mixed nasturtium is one of the flowers that had been planted here in the fall. I recently picked up the Cosmos, as I know for sure they grow here; my mother grew them here, and even after we moved back, I remember seeing a few of them show up in places were they’d self seeded. The Aster are seeds that were included in a memorial card for an old friend that passed away suddenly, last year.

The plastic cover on the bed had torn at one end, where the end of a bamboo stake was. That tear was all the wind needed to rip the whole thing in half. So that was the first thing to get removed. Then the hoops and the bamboo stake pieces holding them in place were pulled out and set aside.

The bed itself was full of weed seedlings, plus the dandelions, crab grass and creeping Charlie around the edges. There was even some burdock coming up, next to the high raised bed. It took a lot of loosening with the garden fork before I could start pulling the weeds and trying to get as many of the roots out as possible. Unfortunately, I was also finding elm tree roots in there, too.

Once weeded, I went over it with the rake to pull the soil more towards the middle, making it narrower than before. Partly because fewer seeds were going to be planted here, and partly to make it easier to cover and protect. After everything was levelled, it got a thorough watering, before the smaller seeds were scattered about. The nasturtium seeds are large enough that I planted those, individually.

While cleaning up the bed, I did find at least one nasturtium seed that had been planted in the fall; they were the only seeds large enough that they could be seen. Which means that it is possible that some of the seeds planted in the fall might have survived and could still germinate. Unlikely, but possible! 😁

Then it was time to set the hoops back in place, over the broken pieces of bamboo stakes holding them in place. With the hoops still attached to the bamboo stakes across the top, it didn’t talk long to get them back in place.

While gathering my supplies for this, I had grabbed a folded up piece of mosquito netting I thought might be good to set over the hoops, but it turned out to be too short for this bed. So I went and got the rolled up netting that had been over the garlic, before they got too tall. That turned out be just the right length! I weighted down one edge at the based of the high raised bed, then unrolled the netting. This netting catches on everything, so that was not as easy as it should have been! Once the netting was pulled snug, there was just enough slack to roll back around the stick it had been stored on. I then used the bricks, rocks and pieces of wood that had been used to hold the plastic over the hoops to secure the side, rolling the weights up in the excess netting. I was able to get the netting nice and snug over the hoops.

Hopefully, this will be enough to protect the area until the seeds germinate and get big enough that they won’t need the hoops and netting anymore. The nasturtium are edible, but they can also act as a trip crop, to keep insects away from other edible greens.

Once I gather the materials, I’ll build frame to fit over this area and attach these hoops to support whatever wire mesh I have to put over it, making sure to close up the ends, too. That will be much handier than setting hoops over sticks in the ground! I’ll be making several such covers, little by little, all with the same frame dimensions, so they can be interchangeable. The prototypes I’ve made so far have been incredibly handy!

One more job done. Time for another hydration break, then one more bed to work on!

See you in my next post…

The Re-Farmer