melons

Analyzing our 2024 Garden: doing things different with melons, squash and gourds

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

For the next while, I’ll be going through my old posts and videos about our 2024 garden, looking at how things worked out, and use that information to decide what we will do in our 2025 garden.

Okay, I’m going to start with what turned out to be the largest category of food we grew in this year’s garden, as it really changed a lot for us. Oddly, that was because of how successful they started out!

One thing we had to seriously change up was how and what we started indoors. Last year, we were able to set up space in the cat free zone – aka: our living room – for the many trays and pots.

Too many trays and pots. We over did it.

That set up was no longer going to be an option this year, so we had to really consider what we would start indoors at all.

We also had a lot of issues with our large seeded starts, having to replant some things several times. So this year, we decided to try pre-germinating seeds. With large seeds, they were also scarified, first.

How it started

Let’s start with the melons.

We did still have some seeds left from previous years, but this year I decided to try the Vesey’s Summer of Melons Blend. We are still in the “try new varieties to figure out what we like” phase, though with this blend, we wouldn’t know what the varieties were. I figured we could look them up, once they ripened enough to be identifiable. The main thing was that the mix included early, mid and late season melons, for a more continuous harvest.

Which… didn’t quite work out as planned. More on that, later!

We also went with some we’d grown before; Sarah’s Choice and Pixie. We also added some Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon, a short season variety.

With the known varieties, I chose just a few seeds from each to pre-germinate. When it came to the Summer of Melons blend, not knowing what the varieties were, I started the entire package, which turned out to have 21 seeds in it. I figured there would be some losses, and we’d end up with less.

We ended up with a 100% germination rate on the blend, plus a near 100% germination rate on the rest.

That was a lot of seedlings!

It was much the same thing with the winter squash. We went with the wild bunch mix, skipping the other winter squash seeds we bought, and got another high germination rate using the pre-germination method. We also used it on some Crespo squash (a variety of Peruvian pumpkin), my last luffa seeds, some African drum gourds and the two free pumpkin seeds that are given out every year at the grocery store in my mother’s town, encouraging people to grow pumpkins for their pumpkin fest.

I am really, really happy with the pre-germination method, and will continue using it.

As for the summer squash, it was decided that these would be direct sown, rather than started indoors. I know my mother always direct sowed her zucchini here, and ended up with massive zucchini (she didn’t know they were supposed to be eaten while small), so I knew it could be done. My problem was, would the slugs destroy them, like the year before?

We ended up direct sowing the yellow Goldy zucchini in one of the chimney block planters by the chain link fence. In pots, we planted Magda squash (a pale green squash), Endeavor zucchini (dark green), and the new White Scallop pattypan squash seeds we picked up to try this year.

Later, when we found ourselves with a gap in a garden bed, it was filled with the last of our G Star pattypan seeds, and more Magda and White Scallops.

When it came time for transplanting, we had so many melons and winter squash, they filled four 18′ garden beds. A new growing area was added to fit the pumpkins and drum gourds, while the luffa went into the wattle weave bed in the old kitchen garden, where they had done so well last year, that we almost got a luffa to harvest! 😄

Oh, I almost forgot.

We also started Zucca melon seeds. That’s another experiment for me, as I’d really, really like to grow these massive melons. Then ended up being transplanted into a kiddie pool that got converted into a raised bed again. The Crespo squash went into a new bed in a completely different area.

The challenge

The first issue we had was having someplace to put the transplants. In the main garden area, my original intention was to expand with new beds that would eventually become trellis tunnels. However, the existing beds were in desperate need of cleaning up.

For a combination or reasons, including meeting mobility and accessibility needs, we will be making raised beds that are 4′ wide on the outside, with paths that are also 4′ wide. We also settled on them being 18′ long, and already had one new bed in those dimensions.

My daughter suggested that, since the existing beds needed to be cleaned up first anyhow, we should shift them into their permanent positions.

When we first made these beds, we basically eyeballed distances. They were roughly the same lengths, but slightly different widths, and some were crooked. The paths were not the same sizes either.

With some of the winter squash needing to be transplanted soon, we really needed to get at least one bed done quickly, and even had felled trees to prepare into logs to frame it with.

Of course, the job ended up being much bigger than expected.

Here is the start of the job.

Finishing it, however, had weather complications.

It eventually got done, but things were quite set back by the weather.

It took over a month to get the beds shifted, putting in transplants as we were able.

We did do interplanting as well. Peas and pole beans went in one bed of winter squash, corn in the other. The future trellis bed with melons planted in it shared the space with transplanted onions we found, and bush beans. The Crespo squash shared their bed with pole beans, too. I will talk about those in other posts, though.

How it ended

Late.

With the weather and late plantings, everything was set back about a month. The “Summer of Melons” blend didn’t give us any ripe melons until late in the season.

A trellis net had been added for them to climb and they grew pretty well. There were LOTS of melons developing, but it was ages before we could harvest any. In the end, we had to harvest most of then in an under ripe stage, before they could get killed by frost.

The winter squash were also late, but my goodness, they grew well! We ended up harvesting some that ripened on the vines and could be cured for winter storage, including one odd Crespo squash.

The last of them had to be harvested early, along with the melons, before the frost hit them.

The zucca melon in their kiddie pool raised bed were decimated by slugs.

The two pumpkins we transplanted did fantastic, and we got some decent sized pumpkins out of them.

The African drum gourd had a really slow start. Then they started blooming like crazy, with fuzzy little gourds forming all over. Some even started to get pretty big. None made it to first frost, though. If we had not had everything set back so much due to the spring weather, we might actually have gotten some gourds this year.

The luffa gourds in the old kitchen garden were set back dramatically. Last year, they had grown really huge there, vining their way up into the lilac branches above. This year, they barely got tall enough to reach the lilacs at all. The weather just set them back way too much. We barely even got both male and female flowers out of the largest ones.

The summer squash was also set back and did quite poorly. The ones in the pots had to be replanted several times. Unfortunately, even with adding barriers, the kittens found their way onto the pots and would often use them for naps, so that sure didn’t help, either!

The White Scallop patty pans did not make it at all. I gave up after replanting three times.

The Magda did okay, but we only got to harvest a couple of squash from them. The green zucchini did eventually grow and produce, but we had next to nothing to harvest.

The Goldy zucchini in the chimney block planter by the chain link fence produced some harvestable squash, but very few.

In the main garden area, between the onions and shallots, I was sure we’d get nothing at all. The Magda squash never did germinate. We did get a few of G Star patty pans, and they grew really well. There were even a lot of little patty pans developing. Unfortunately, with everything set back so much, we never did get many in a harvestable size before the frost killed them.

The White Scallop squash took so long to germinate, I was sure they’d died off, but we did eventually get two plants. It took even longer for them to start blooming and developing squash. We did have a few just big enough to harvest, at about 2 – 3 inches across, but the frost hit not long after they finally began to produce.

The big surprise and success was the Crespo squash.

We ended up with three surviving transplants, with one having a damaged stem after the bin the transplants were in got knocked over by cats in the sun room. They went into a new small raised bed near the compost ring. We’ve grown there before, but found the area gets soggy, so it was built up a few inches. That alone made a huge difference when the spring rains flooded everything out.

The Crespo squash absolutely thrived in that location. The vines spread so far, I had to train them to not cover the paths I needed open. Some vines grew into the cherry trees behind them, started to climb the branches, and even started to produce dangling squash!

Once again, though, the late start and weather delays slowed the development of squash. The very first one to grow got to a certain size and just stopped growing, becoming a darker green and staying small. Others, however, kept growing and stayed the pale green colour they are supposed to be. The largest ones developed the deeply fissured lumps and bumps this variety is supposed to get.

In the end, only one got to a size that I would consider fully ripe, with two others that got pretty close. With the oldest one included, we got four squash off those vines, though where were quite a few more little ones that never got a chance to get big before the frost hit.

I’m absolutely thrilled. I’ve been trying to grow these for years, and finally succeeded! I look forward to growing them again – this time with seeds saved from the biggest of them.

Thinking of next year

In general, I would say this year’s melons, squash and gourds were an overall success.

We did eventually end up with lots of melons to enjoy, though some had to be left to ripen off the vine for a while.

In the end, though, we basically planted too many. With the melon and winter squash mixes having such high germination rates, there were so many more plants than we intended.

Next year, we will do far fewer.

I’d still like to do Crespo squash again, or maybe try the Zucca melon in the bed the Crespo squash were in.

We got seeds for winter squash my daughter actually requested, though, and never used them. So next year, I want to try those. There is one variety my daughter chose because it’s described as an excellent soup squash. The other two are the Mashed Potato and Baked Potato varieties. I forget which one she actually asked for, so I got both.

I plan much the same with the melons. We will definitely grow melons again, and try another short season watermelon (we had only a single Cream of Saskatchewan melon show up, and it was about the size of a softball). At most, I am thinking only two varieties of melon, plus a watermelon, and only a few plants each.

As for the gourds, those continue to be my “fun” thing to grow. I want to get more luffa seeds from another source – I do want to grow some sponges! – and I want to grow large gourds for crafting purposes. Next year, I’m thinking of trying Canteen gourds again, as those are from a Canadian seed company that grows their seeds even further north than we are.

Conclusion

Aside from some drastic failures, such as the Zucca melon, or semi-failures, like the summer squash, I’d say this past year was a real success. Especially for the winter squash, though the melons did really well, too.

Next year, however, is already going to be very different.

I still had a lot of summer squash seeds from when I accidentally bought three collections instead of one. These included Endeavor Zucchini, Goldy zucchini, Magda squash and Sunburst pattypan squash.

For next year’s garden, we’re trying a winter sowing experiment. For summer squash, all the seeds we have – both old and new, zucchini type and patty pans – were combined, then scattered on a prepared bed in the main garden area. They got planted with some adjustments for spacing, then covered with a deep mulch of leaves and grass clippings for the winter.

In theory, once the snow melts and the mulch is removed so the warmth of the sun can reach the soil, and they should germinate once soil temperature is right.

With so many of these seeds being older, I don’t actually expect a high germination rate. Which would be okay. Otherwise, the bed will become overcrowded and I’d have to thin it.

All I’d really like is to finally get a good crop of summer squash.

Next year’s winter squash will be all new varieties to try, using seeds that were meant for this year’s garden.

We still have melon and watermelon seeds, so I don’t think we’ll buy new varieties to try next year. Same with the gourds, except the luffa. If I want to grow those, I will need to buy more seeds.

The main thing is that we will be growing fewer of them, so that they don’t end up taking over so much of the garden! There are quite a few other things that we were never able to plant simply because we didn’t have the space. Until we can get more progress on those new garden beds and trellis tunnels, we will need to be more selective on what we grow, and how much, for plants that take up so much space!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvest before first frost, and getting a lot done!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My younger daughter and I were able to get so much done today, all before our expected first frost.

Depending on which weather app I look at, we’re supposed to drop to either -2C/28F, or 1C/34F tonight.

Either way, we’re looking at frost tonight.

Strangely, there are absolutely no frost warnings. Perhaps the humidity is too low. The temperature alone is enough to cause damage, though.

Last night, my older daughter helped me cover the two beds that actually can be covered, and I’m glad we did. We dropped to 3C/37F last night, and that was enough to kill off the last of the squash and melon leaves. Even the Crespo squash was droopy, and they were the only ones that were still lush, green and growing.

My daughter started off by checking on the biggest Crespo squash. As she rolled it aside, the stem broke right off its vine.

This is what it looked like, underneath.

We made sure it wasn’t sitting directly on the ground, but this damage still happened.

That’s okay. We’ll just cut that part off and eat it first!

This one is mature enough that we should be able to save seed, too! It took four years of trying, but we finally got a mature Crespo squash!

The two that were growing in the bean trellis didn’t get to full maturity, so they’ll need to be eaten sooner, too. Or we could cut make a puree to freeze or something like that.

My daughter started off harvesting the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden ahead of me. She’d collected all the Forme de Couer and had moved on to the Black Cherry tomatoes by the time I was able to start helping her. The Black Cherries were so tangled up in the lilac branches, we had to cut our way through to be able see, never mind reach, the tomatoes. After a while, I grabbed a pile of cut up tomato plants to take it to the compost pile when I realized, there were plenty of tomatoes in the compost pile to gather.

So I grabbed another bin and worked on those.

I found a surprise!

I knew there were two types of volunteer tomatoes in there. A few Indigo Blues, and a whole lot of Roma VF from last year’s harvests.

I found a third type, completely buried by the others!

They look like a slicing tomato of some kind, but I don’t remember growing a red variety of slicing tomato last year. It was also the only one that had an almost ripe tomato.

You’ll notice a lot of the Romas are very pale – almost white – in colour. These were essentially blanched from being under so many stems and leaves. I’m really surprised by how many we got in there!

It’s a shame they never got to ripen. A few of the Romas had started to show a blush. Who knows how many of these will actually ripen once indoors.

By the time I got the compost tomatoes done, my daughter was almost finished the old kitchen garden, so I moved on to the main garden area, bringing the wagon with the Crespo squash, to start harvesting the squash and melons. Then my daughter joined me and started harvesting the rest of the San Marzano tomatoes.

I found several melons were already “harvested”! One had a hole in it and was essentially hollowed out, so I’m guessing a mouse got that one. The others looked more like racoon damage.

Once the squash and melons were picked, plus a few patty pan squash, I cut down and went through all the corn stalks to find the cobs I’d left to go to seed.

*sigh*

This was all the racoons left me, and it’s not even dried out enough to have viable seeds.

Ah, well. Live and learn!

That done, I got another bin and helped my daughter with the last of the tomatoes. There were so many San Marzanos in the main garden area! Then we did the tomatoes that were at the chain link fence.

Here is the entire harvest.

The bin with the cat next to it has the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes from the chain link fence in it, plus the tiny tomatoes from the volunteer tomato plant that I found among the potatoes. There were so many perfect little tomatoes! Not a single one had a chance to ripen. We have no idea what kind of tomatoes they were, either.

My daughter had already moved the previously harvested winter squash from the garage to the house, so now these squash are set up in the garage. It looks like some of the blue squash did get to fully mature, but most of them seem shy of full maturity, so they won’t be able to properly cure. They are still quite edible, though. They just won’t last as long in the root cellar than if they had fully matured and cured. Still, some time set up like this in the garage will help them last a bit longer.

Once we were done with the harvesting, my daughter uncovered the box of the truck, and we loaded up with as many bags of cans as we felt we could properly secure.

Which turned out to be maybe a third of the pile!

The whole thing got covered with a tarp and strapped down with ratchet straps. We set two up in an X across the pile, plus two more across the front and back. It was pretty windy, though, and once we got to highway speeds, the tarp was billowing under the straps more than I liked.

We stopped at a gas station to tuck the tarp back in place, then secured it more using Bungee cords. It still billowed, but nothing that was a potential problem.

This is the first time we’ve gone to this salvage place, but they were easy to find. I’d called for instructions yesterday, so we knew where to go to start. After talking to someone in the office, she directed me to where we should pull up, and staff could unload the truck.

My daughter and I started taking the straps and tarp off while they brought over a couple of bins with a forklift to bring them to the scale. All the cans are in transparent bags, so they could see that there were some tin cans in there, too.

That was okay for them, but good for us.

The tin cans go for 10 cents per weight.

The aluminum goes for 50 cents.

When they’re mixed up like this, they basically figure out something in between.

After everything was unloaded, we moved the truck again, and I went back to the office to wait. I had thought I stopped out of the way, but I turned out to be wrong, when a very large truck pulling a very long trailer came in! One of the office staff asked if we could park on the street. When I moved the truck, though, there wasn’t enough room to get by the trailer. I went back inside while my daughter waited until the truck could pull ahead, then she found a place to park.

As I was waiting in the office, I heard some staff going back and forth and saying something about “getting her a magnet”.

Then a guy came up to me and handed me a red keychain with their company name and number on it. It turns out, I was the “her”, and the keychain has a strong magnet on its end. This is for the next time we bring in a load; when we back stuff up, we can use the magnet to make sure there’s no cans with steel in them mixed in.

It means we’ll have to re-bag all the cans again, but the difference in price makes it worth is. With sooooo many cat food cans, plus the pop and energy drink cans, it is quite a loss to not get full price on the aluminum because there’s half a dozen tin cans scattered among them.

In the end, we brought 208 pounds, which got us just over $17. While they did give us an in between price, we still could have gotten quite a bit more, if we didn’t have those tin cans in there.

Live and learn!

It was very nice of them to give us the magnet, too. We have magnets, of course, but this one will be much more convenient!

That done, my daughter and I made a quick stop at a gas station, then headed home. We made a point of not covering the box again so that, once at home, we could give it a cleaning. The truck has screw holes in the bed from when it was a commercial vehicle hauling trailers. A remarkable amount of dust from the gravel roads gets in there!

I know it’s just going to get full of dust again, but it sure did feel better to finally wash that out with the hose!

Then we filled the truck again, this time with our garbage. We were overdue for a trip to the dump!

I had planned to go to a different landfill in our municipality, but I don’t know the area it’s in, so we went to our usual one.

I was really glad to have my daughter with me! The pit area is a real disaster. My daughter got out before we went into the pit area to make sure there wasn’t anything that might puncture a tire. While she kicked things out of the way, I slowly crawled along behind her with the truck until she could guide me in backing up to the pit. Not as close as we normally would have gone; too much broken glass!

And nails.

She was finding and kicking away nails, the whole distance!

This place has really gone downhill. The previous municipal council had fired the guy that used to take care of the landfill. I don’t know what the new council is doing, but the attendant that’s here now is not someone physically able to maintain the pit. Which is fine, if being an attendant is the only part of her job description, but whoever it is that’s been hired to use the heavy equipment to clean where we’re supposed to drive up to the pit is not doing a good job at all. Even the equipment being used is different, and the tracks on that front end loader is just destroying the gravel driveways.

But, we got the job done, and so far, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting any flat tires, thanks to my daughter!

As we were leaving, my daughter wondered about being able to go to town and pick up something. It had been a long time since either of us had eaten, and she was thinking of perhaps treating us.

After talking about it, we decided that, between the two of us, we could pick up some fish and chips for all of us for supper.

Which was about when we got a message from my husband. The pharmacy called. When he had his prescription refills delivered, they didn’t have enough to fill one completely. They now had the amount they owed him.

Well, that was handy! We would have time to do that, before the pharmacy closed at 6pm.

A trip to town, it was!

As we were going along, we ended up stuck behind some slower moving traffic, so it took a bit longer to get to the pharmacy. I was going to just dash in, anyhow.

As I was walking in the door, behind two other people, a staff member let us know…

…they were closing in one minute – and she locked the entry doors behind us!

It turns out, they close at 5:30.

Thankfully, my husband’s prescription was quick to find, and it was already covered, so it just needed to be handed to me, and I could go!

From there, we went and got the fish and chips to bring home, plus a quick stop at the grocery store for something else my husband needed. We could finally go home!

We weren’t quite done yet, though!

One home, my daughter took care of bringing in the hot food, while I started bringing the bins of tomatoes into the old kitchen.

I have no idea what we’re going to do with them all.

In previous years, we kept a bin of green tomatoes out and my family just snacked on them as they ripened. They were all small grape, cherry or pear type tomatoes.

I know there are lots of things that can be done with green tomatoes; we’ve just never done them. I wouldn’t be able to eat them, so it’s a matter of finding things the family would like.

What we don’t have is the space to lay out so many green tomatoes in what should be a single layer, to ripen indoors. It would have to be in the living room – the cat free zone – but it’s a disaster right now.

Until we figure that out, all five bins are now laid out on the chest freezer in the old kitchen. That room is too dark and gets too cold to be able to leave them there to ripen.

Once we were finally able to have our supper, things still weren’t done!

It was back outside to recover the two beds for the night, so the peppers and eggplant will survive. The hoses had to be prepped so they wouldn’t have any water in them to freeze, and I even remembered to close the doors in the side of the garage the squash and melons were in, so they won’t get as cold.

And now I am FINALLY done for today.

I’m hoping to actually get to bed before midnight and get some real sleep for a change. My attempt to do so last night was a total failure! 😄

There is, of course, lots to do outside. This is one of the busiest times of the year, as we get ready for winter, while the weather holds!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Some garden destruction!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We had a lovely mild morning today. We supposedly had rain last night, but nothing noticeable. I’m going to have to go back out to water the remaining garden beds today.

As I write this, my various weather apps tell me we are at 15C/59F. I just made a trip to the town north of us. There’s a bank with one of those signs with a rotating display that includes time and temperature. According to that, it was 21C/70F.

I’d say the sign is right and the apps are wrong!

I did a harvest this morning and completely forgot to take a photo of it! There were some Chocolate Cherry and Black Cherry tomatoes to harvest, an orange bell pepper and a hot pepper, a surprising amount of beans, and some San Marzano tomatoes.

What I did not harvest was melons, but something did!

Considering the size and weight of the melon, and the fact that it was taken out of a raised bed and into the middle of a path, I’d say racoons did this.

Racoons did NOT do this.

This is all that’s left of my kohlrabi, after the flea beetles were done with it.

*sigh*

Tonight, we’re supposed to drop down to 4C/39F. Not quite frost temperatures, but we’ll definitely cover the two beds where it’s even possible to do so. I don’t think we’ll harvest the last of the other things until tomorrow, though. I’m taking a chance with that, but we’ll see how it goes. Just watering the garden really well will help things handle the temperatures a little bit.

It’s all one day at a time in the garden, this time of year!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a morning harvest, plus another long day!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had a long day taking my mother to her specialist appointment in the city yesterday, and now another long day with her today. I did have time to do some of my morning rounds, though, and was able to gather a good sized harvest!

In the giant colander, there are a good number of Chocolate Cherry tomatoes from by the chain link fence. I also picked a few green Seychelle beans from the bed shared with the Crespo squash, and I even found a few on the one plant next to the purple Carminat pole beans. There are even some Royal Burgundy bush beans in there.

I found a melon lying on the ground in the raised bed – it harvested itself! 😄 There are a couple of yellow peppers, plus a Sweet Chocolate. Some of the peppers that are supposed to be more orange are finally starting to turn colour. There’s a single G Star pattypan squash, plus a few San Marzano tomatoes.

When it came time to go into the old kitchen garden, I knew there would be quite a bit, so I grabbed the bin. Those are all Forme de Couer and Black Cherry tomatoes in there.

Including a rude looking tomato! Click over to the next photo to see what I mean. 😄

After that, I left things to my daughters and headed out to my mother’s.

Long story short: her apartment finally got sprayed for bed bugs. There were no sign of any, so they will have to come back only one more time. Her neighbour got sprayed, too. I get the impression that apartment has been the main source of the problem in the building.

My mother then had to stay out of her apartment for 6 hours. Technically, she should stay out for 12 hours, as she has respiratory issues, but she refuses.

The neighbor says they only need to stay out for 4 hours, but I have no idea where she got that from. The notification letter they all get says the same thing. At least 6 hours.

We made sure to take along my mother’s supper time medications, as well as the information sheets the eye clinic gave her, yesterday, to go over. While we were waiting for the exterminator to arrive, I did go through some with her. I took the grid eye test, which is a flat magnetic sheet, and put it on her fridge. The grid has a black dot in the middle that is supposed to be focused on. I spent some time explaining the test to her, how to do it, and that she should be checking her left eye with it, every day. I even held it for her while she did the test, as instructed.

While explaining the grid test to her, how to take the test, what she’s looking for, I was saying, your left eye this, your left eye that, with your left eye…

Yet she still stopped at one point and said, “with my right eye, then…”

…

No. Your right eye can’t even see the dot in the grid. It’s for your left eye.

It’s going to take a while for it to stick, I think!

We had a nice chat with the manager while her apartment was being sprayed – she parker her walker across from her door and would not move until the exterminator left.

Then we had to find something to do or somewhere to go for six hours.

I was going to move the truck into the loading zone in front of the doors, to make it safer for my mother to get in, but the exterminator’s truck was in there, and he was chatting with the manager. When I got there, I did apologize for my mother’s behaviour over all this.

She is still utterly convinced the exterminator rifled through her closet to find and steal 70+ year old passports. In fact, at one point when it came up in conversation, she started saying, “maybe I should call the police?” When I said no, she said I was accusing her of lying. I told her, I didn’t think she was lying, but that she probably just put them somewhere and forgot where. When she moves, she’ll probably find them again. Her response was that I was “against” her.

*sigh*

Anyhow…

It was a good thing I caught up with them, because the manager remembered to ask if my mother’s bed had mattress covers. She doesn’t, and the exterminator said she needs two – one for the mattress, one for the box spring. Then he remembered he might have one and checked in his truck. He did have one and gave it to me for my mother’s mattress. We’ll still need one for the box spring.

Then I mentioned I needed to move my truck so my mother could get in, and we said our goodbyes.

By this time, though, my mother had come out and was sitting in her walker, watching us suspiciously. She called me over before I moved the truck and started asking me questions… why was the exterminator still there? Why was the manager sitting in his truck? etc.

Oh, gosh. I just realized what she was getting at.

She thought they were waiting for her to leave, so the manager could use his master key to get into her apartment, so they could steal things.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

We got her into the truck and then headed out for lunch. There was one place she wanted to go to, because someone new bought it and she wanted to see how it was, now that it wasn’t “browny” people that owned it (it had been owned by a Korean family). *sigh* The place was still being worked on, on the inside, but when she saw the worker’s vehicles in the parking lot, she thought it was open and wanted me to go inside and check. I had to tell her, no, you can’t just walk into a construction zone!

So we went to a chicken and pizza restaurant.

She ended up ordering a vegetable pizza this time, which I normally would not have thought much of, except that my mother is once again deciding that the reason she’s having trouble with her eyes is because of food, and so she needs to eat more vegetables and green things.

There is no known cause for macular degeneration, and there is no food she can eat or not eat that will make any difference. But she heard something somewhere – maybe last week, maybe last month, maybe 30 years ago – and just latches on to things.

We’re going to have to watch her on that, because she’s going to start causing malnutrition in herself if we don’t.

I had something else, so she had a small pizza to herself, with some left over that was packed up for later. We took our time eating, though – we did have 6 hours to kill! – then went across the street to a little department store she wanted to check out, while she was out and about. I helped her get across the street, then moved the truck to park by the store, so she wouldn’t have to cross the street again. The nice thing about that was that I was able to pull up really close to the curb – and that extra height made it downright easy for her to get into the truck when she was done!

We then both went in and did a bit of shopping.

There’s only so long we could drag that out, though.

There was nowhere else she wanted to go, and there is nowhere in this town where one can just hang out. We even tried driving around parts of town we’ve never gone into before, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that, either. 😄

We managed to use up about 2-3 hours before finally just going back to her building and sitting in the common room. No one else was around, so we brought out the information the eye clinic gave her and I went over it with her. Most of it, the doctor had already explained to her really well.

It didn’t take long to go through it all.

I was completely prepared to stay with my mother until 7pm, but she told me that I could go home. She was really tired and was going to just sit and close her eyes for a while. She had her leftovers for supper, and I’d added a bottle of orange juice I’d gotten with her meal on the way home from the city yesterday, that got forgotten in the truck, so she was prepared for taking her medication with her supper while in the common room.

So I headed home.

When I got home, my younger daughter was adding more supports to the tomatoes at the chain link fence that yesterday’s winds had managed to blow partly over. I ended up helping her with that, then she moved on to start breaking down the tree that the winds blow over and onto a crabapple tree.

I had gone to talk to her when our phones both dinged. My husband had sent a message.

My mother had called and left a message on the answering machine. Something about her keys?

I had completely forgotten.

While digging in her purse at one point, my mother gave me her keys to put in my pocket, so they wouldn’t get lost.

They were still in my pocket!!!

I had dashed into the house to get my purse when the phone range again. It was my mother, trying again – from the number on call display, a neighbour had let her use their phone. I told her, I was leaving right then and there!

When I got there, so was so apologetic about having me drive all the way back again. Meanwhile, I was apologizing for forgetting I had her keys! It was pretty funny!

Enough time had passed that she had eaten her supper and taken her medications. It was still early to get into her apartment, but by less than an hour, so we went in anyway.

I had offered to come back to help her put things back and she had said no, so this actually worked out.

I was able to put the mattress cover on her bed – and found out that they’d given her, and others, mattress covers long ago. She didn’t want me to put it on her bed, and basically scoffed at the fact that they had been given them in the first place.

*sigh*

So, somewhere in her closet, she had 2 more of these. Maybe when my sister next visits my mother, she’ll be ablet to find one and get it onto the box spring.

I made up her bed and put a few things away.

If she didn’t have to wait until the health care aid came to help with her nightly medications, she would have gone to bed right then and there!

I did make sure to set out the little miniature tagine bowl and lid I’d brought for her. She thought it was adorable! This will be a handy container for the health care aide to put her pills into, after removing them from the bubble pack, so they can both easily see that the right number are in there. Plus, my mother can more easily pick up the little bowl to take them, rather than trying to use her hands. Some of her fingers are deformed with arthritis.

The extra trip was good for another reason. I had forgotten to hit a bank machine earlier, to take cash out for the septic guy. We’re almost into October. Time to get the tank emptied for the winter.

We’ll need to contact the septic repair company again, too, and hopefully get a date on when they can come and repair the leaking pipes at the expeller!

I really hope we’re not getting ghosted by this company. We’ve had this happen before with other companies, in the first couple of years after we moved here. I have reason to believe it has something to do with our vandal defaming us, though I have no actual proof. Our vandal has a past history of trying to prevent companies from doing things here at the farm, and even on property in the heart of our little hamlet that my parents used to own. Then, when they tried to sell it, he drove off two potential buyers!

Yes, he felt he was entitled to that property, just like he feels he’s entitled to this property, too.

Of course, it could be this company is just really busy, trying to get jobs done before winter. Unfortunately, with past experience, I can’t help but wonder.

Well, if we don’t hear from them after trying to call them back several times, there is another company we can contact again. They are in a completely different town that our vandal doesn’t really go to, that I know of, so the chances of them having any contact with our vandal is very low.

The main thing is that this gets repaired before the ground freezes.

Thankfully, our system has still been working so far, even if the greywater is all just soaking into the ground, as if we had a septic field instead of an expeller. The leak must be pretty close to the surface for the ground to become saturated like that, so if it doesn’t get repaired, the whole thing will freeze, the greywater will have nowhere to go, and the ice will break the pipes even more.

*sigh*

Tomorrow, I will hopefully not have to go anywhere, except maybe the dump. I don’t know if I dare to to the nearest landfill again, with how bad it has gotten lately (I don’t want another flat tire!), but the next nearest one is also open on Saturdays. I just need to find it.

If all goes well, though, I’ll finally be able to catch up with stuff here at home!

Like prep and freeze a whole lot of bell peppers and melons, and either freeze whole tomatoes, or start another sauce in the Crockpot.

I really look forward to just staying home. 😁

I’m so tired!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvest time, and our first yellow peppers!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had another sleepless night last night (courtesy of the cats!), so my daughters took care of most of the morning stuff. That let me get at least a couple of hours of sleep before I headed out to the garden, just before noon.

We got a smattering of rain yesterday evening, so I used one of the side walls from the broken market tent to cover the onions that were curing outside. Once things were warmer, I uncovered them again, so they could get some sun and air flow.

Speaking of air flow…

We’ve got some warm, sunny days coming up, and mild overnight temperatures, so I lifted the bottom half of the vinyl sheets wrapped around the box frame over the eggplant and hot pepper bed.

As you can see in the foreground of the photo above, Syndol is checking out the eggplant and hot peppers I harvested out of there this morning!

This is the rest of today’s harvest. We have a first today!

Finally! Some yellow peppers!

Yes, a couple still have some green on them, but I wanted to get some of the weight off the plants. It was much the same with the few tomatoes I collected today.

Also, yes, that is a mutant Little Finger eggplant on the left! I actually remembered to bring pruning shears to cut the stems – they are surprisingly spiky! – and it was rather a surprised to cut one stem and get two eggplants! There are two Classic eggplant in there, too. I’m harvesting a bit smaller, as the large ones we’ve harvested before were getting pretty seedy inside. Mind you, we could leave some longer just to collect the seeds, but it’s probably too late in the season for any of the ones still on the plants to have viable seeds to collect.

The long, straight hot peppers were easy to harvest, but the curled one was so twisted around the stalk and another pepper, I ended up breaking off the top of the pepper itself, rather than the stem.

We also have one melon today, and one purple Dragonfly pepper. The colour is very much the same as the eggplants!

Pretty darn good for near the end of September in our area!

The German Butterball potato plants have all died off, so we should be harvesting those, soon. A few of the winter squash are starting to look ready to harvest and get set aside to cure, too. The one Jebousek lettuce that seeded itself should have seeds ready to collect, too. The kohlrabi look like a total loss, though. The flea beetles just decimated them. 😢 We finally got some to actually grow, and this happens. *sigh*

As we build up our raised beds, making it so they can be covered with insect netting is going to be important! I would really like to grow kohlrabi and cabbage and brassicas in general, but it looks like that’s just not going to happen until we have a way to protect them from those flippin’ flea beetles!!

All in good time.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

For now, I’m just happy with what we have!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: morning harvest, and peppers finally ripening!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It was a lovely, cool and foggy morning today. Apparently, we did have some rain last night, but barely enough to wet the grass. Other areas of the province got flooding!

Though we had thunderstorms on the forecast, the amount of predicted rain was pretty low, and these systems often blow right past us. With that in mind, I decided to water the garden, though not as deeply as I would have if there was no rain at all in the forecast.

I also wanted to stay out longer, as I’d opened the gate for the scrap guy – more on that in another post. Before the watering, though, I managed to get a picture of one of our first yellow peppers turning colour. I can’t remember if this is an Early Sunsation or Early summer

If you click through to the next image, you’ll see this morning’s harvest – including some accidental harvests. I found a bell pepper branch that had broken off under the weight of its peppers. As I was tending to the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes, I tried to lift a heavily laden branch to some support, only to have it fall off in my hands. The same thing happened later, when moving some of the Black Cherry tomatoes for better support. I’ve made fresh cuts on the broken ends, which were partially dried from having broken much earlier, then wrapped them in damp paper towel. They’re now hanging in the living room/cat free zone to continue ripening.

Also, it’s time to make another batch of tomato sauce!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvest, and identifying compost tomatoes

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While doing my morning rounds and checking the garden beds, I spotted a bit of colour among the compost tomatoes!

The first to photos look like the Indigo Blue tomatoes we grew last year. The last photo looks like the Roma VF we grew last year.

Given that we are two days away from our average first frost, I don’t expect any of these to ripen.

I did get a pretty decent harvest this morning – and even remembered to bring my big colander that I use specifically for this.

There was barely a handful of all three types of beans. At this time of year, having any at all is a treat.

There is one melon that came off its stem, but I’m not sure if that was because it was ripe. This melon was starting to soften in a spot next to the stem.

I grabbed a couple of the largest Dragonfly peppers, and the single Goldy zucchini and G star patty pan. The zucchini does have a couple more on the plant that can be harvested in a few days. The G Star patty pans are still blooming, but I’m not seeing any developing squash. The white patty pans are blooming lots, but still only male flowers.

The red tomatoes are all Forme De Couer – including the one green one. I was trying to get a red tomato, and the green one broke off, instead! The small tomatoes are the Black Cherry tomatoes.

I was in the process of watering the old kitchen garden from the rain barrel when my brother and his wife showed up with another load. While my brother was clearing the space they wanted to unload into, I was able to give my SIL some tomatoes. She chose the red tomatoes, but tried a Black Cherry, too. As we were leaving the yard, I spotted a single Chocolate cherry and gave it to her to try, and asked her if she could taste any difference. The Black Cherry tomatoes aren’t getting any darker, and look just like the Chocolate cherries, so I was curious. She didn’t find a lot of difference in the taste, except that the Black Cherry seems a touch sweeter, while the Chocolate cherry seemed a bit more acidic. She really liked both.

After that, I helped them unload, and they are on their way home. After a hydration break, I’m heading back out to finish watering the garden. We’re expected to reach a high of 24C/75F today, which isn’t too bad. Over the next couple of days, we’re supposed to hit highs of 28C/82F, and later in the week, we’re even supposed to reach 30C/86F. On the 10th, our average first frost date, we’re expected to have a high of 28C/82F, and a low of 13C/55F. Which would mean no danger of frost at all!

Looking at the long range forecast, it will be another 10 days before we start getting overnight lows below 10C/50F again. We’ve dropped down to 6C/43F a few times over the past week. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we won’t get those lows again until the last week or so of September, and won’t get risk of frost temperatures until October.

I wouldn’t be surprised if all those forecasts changed by the end of the day, but if it does, I hope it changes to warmer, not cooler, temperatures! The garden needs every frost free day it can get!

Still, I’m happy with what we have. It is more than I was expecting for this year!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first ripe melon harvest – for reals

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Not long ago, I found one of the Summer of Melons Blend melons had turned yellow and was looking misshapen. When I picked it up, it fell of the vine. Technically, that should have meant it was ripe, but it didn’t look ripe. We haven’t cut it open yet, though. Too much other stuff going on.

Just a little while ago, my daughter and I did a sort of Florida weave to support the rest of the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area. That didn’t take long at all. My daughter’s been working on commissions, still mostly at night, lastly, so she hadn’t seen the garden in a while. As we were looking at the melon bed near the tomatoes, I noticed one of them had turned yellow, and fallen off the brick that was keeping it from direct contact with the ground. I went to put it back, and discovered it had fallen off its vine completely!

How handy, that my husband’s giant self healing cutting mat is still on the dining table. 😄 You can see that it’s about 8 inches long.

In the next photo, you can see the stem end. That’s how it’s supposed to be with melons, when they are fully ripe.

We haven’t cut it open yet. We’ll probably do that – and the little one – this evening, so we can compare.

I can hardly wait to try it! Being part of the Summer of Melon’s blend, we have no idea what variety it is, but if we like it, I want to save some of the seeds.

September 5, and we finally have our first melon.

Five more days to average first frost.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons and squash and gourds, oh my!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While doing my evening rounds, I was able to take progress photos of the melons, winter squash, pumpkins and drum gourds, using my hand as a size reference, before losing the light.

I am just amazed by how many melons we’ve got! Instagram slideshows have a maximum of 10 images. For the East bed alone, I ended up with 21 images. This, even with images having multiple melons in it. There was at least one in the bed that I found as I was taking the photos!

Here are the photos, split up into three slideshows.

Then there were the ones in the West bed. I was able to catch multiple melons in a single shot several times, so this one got split into only two slideshows.

The second slide show include the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons. We’ve actually lost one of those, but there is a new one that looks like it will make it. Plus, there are more female flowers showing up!

There are even new female flowers showing up in the winter squash beds that I’ve been hand pollinating. It’s almost impossible for them to fully mature with the growing season we have left, but I just can’t help wanting to give them a chance!

First is the East bed winter squash.

Then the West bed.

We do still have drum gourd doing their best.

There’s just the one that’s been getting bigger, but it seems to be starting to turn yellow, so I don’t know if it’s going to make it. As you can see, though, there are more female flowers blooming!

All the pumpkins, meanwhile, have turned orange.

There’s just one that still has a tiny big of green on it.

I’m also really impressed with the Crespo squash. Not only have the vines themselves had a growth spurt, with huge leaves, and the vines spreading all over – including climbing a nearby cherry tree! – but there are more squash developing!

One is definitely a loss, but we’ve got two new ones along with the very first one that is getting all nubbly. There are more female flowers that have been hand pollinated – including one on the vine climbing the cherry tree – but it’s too early to know if the pollination took. Plus, there are more female flower buds that will probably bloom in a few days.

All this, and the only thing that’s been harvested is one winter squash that broke its own stem. Nothing is ready for harvesting, though some of the winter squash are close. With the melons, some of them are supposed to be early melons and we should have been able to already harvest some of those, but with so many things almost a month behind, that hasn’t happened yet. All the melons and squash are supposed to be short season varieties, but that wet, wet spring we had really set things back.

We have only 18 days before our average first frost date.

Looking at the long range forecast, the predictions have flip flopped again, and it’s now looking like we’ll, at the very least, have a first frost in the second week of September, with highs around 15C/59F and lows as far down as 2C/36F, which can have frost – but then we are supposed to climb back up to highs of 29C/84F and lows of 13C/55F.

I’ll bet if I look again in the morning, the long range forecast will completely change again.

Meanwhile, we are under a heat warning right now. Over the weekend, we’re expecting highs of 30C/86F, with the humidex at 38C/100F. The predicted rain and thunderstorms are no longer in the forecast, though other parts of Canada are getting thunderstorm warnings right now. It’s just not supposed to reach us, anymore.

Looks like I’m going to be watering the garden in the morning, again!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: squash and melon progress

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I’ve got my days so mixed up right now!

I have been aiming to get photos of the developing squash, pumpkins and melons every couple of days, with my hand in the shot for perspective. I was sure I’d last done this a couple of days ago, but once the photos were loaded onto my desktop, and I started doing the Instagram slideshows, I realized the last ones I did were three days so.

Oh, well. Not a big deal!

One thing I did not bother with, this time, was take photos of the drum gourds. There’s been basically no change in those, which suggests to me they’ll probably just dry up and fall off.

Which has happened, and is happening, to some others.

Oh! I just realized I forgot about the Crespo squash again. The bed it’s in is in the East yard, and nowhere near the others. Out of sight, out of mind! I did check it today, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much, but there’s a reason I include my hand in the shots!

We might be seeing a slowdown in the garden for a bit, anyhow. The last couple of nights have actually been cold, and it rained for much of today. As I write this, we’re at 15C/59F, and our high was only 18C/64F. It’s going to start warming up again, starting tomorrow, and get fairly hot over the next week. Nothing like the heat we were dealing with before, but hot enough that the garden should recover from the recent chilly nights! Wind gusts have been a problem, though. A lot of the corn stalks were blown over, some flat to the ground. I added twine supports around the bed, but I don’t know just how badly damaged they were. I’ll find out for sure if the stalks start turning brown and drying up! We’re so close to being able to harvest corn, too.

Anyhow…

If you want to compare with previous photos, you can check out these posts. (Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place!)

July 28
July 30
August 1
August 3
August 5

Once again, we start with the Summer of Melons mix in the Easternmost bed, East facing side.

We actually lost one of the melons on this side, but I did include a new one that is getting big enough I’m pretty sure it’ll make it. There’s a few others that are getting bigger, but I’m still not sure about them, yet.

The West facing side doesn’t have as many melons growing on it… yet? I’ve been letting the vines sprawl among the onions on this side, and there may well be some I haven’t found under the leaves.

Next is the pumpkin and drum gourd bed – but no pictures of drum gourds this time.

The one pumpkin that I figured was dying off is now officially dead. I broke it off and could see it was starting to rot underneath.

I’m surprised by how quickly the oldest and largest pumpkin is turning orange!

Next is the winter squash interplanted with peas and beans.

Yes, one of those that looked like it was drying, finally broke off its stem. There’s one other that I think might be a loss, but we shall see.

The unfortunate thing was the large, round blue squash. It had a board under it, and was leaning against the log frame. When I found it, it had rolled onto its top and was sitting completely upside down. I went to flip it over, and the stem broke right off. I’m pretty sure it was already partially broken from when the squash rolled onto it.

We do seem to have another of the same variety in the other bed, though, so maybe we’ll still get one that fully matures before it’s harvested!

The squash with the corn was harder to check on.

Not only was I pushing back leaves to try and get clear photos of the developing squash, but I also had to carefully lift the corn stalks that had been blown over, on top of them!

Last of all is the second melon bed, East side first.

In the second photo, you can just see the yellow end of a smaller melon that has died off behind a larger one.

On the West facing side, the single Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon hasn’t even dropped its blossom yet. I’m not seeing any other female flowers developing.

The rest seem to be doing quite fine and getting bigger.

Looking at the long range forecast, it seems that August will continue to be comfortably hot, right into the beginning of September. We might get away with no frost until the end of September. One can hope! I’ll take very frost free day we can get.

While driving around today, though, I heard on the radio that we are coming into a La Nińa winter. Which, for our area, translates into a cold and rainy fall, and a bitterly cold winter.

Like we need another one of those.

We were spoiled by last winter’s mild El Nińo winter, that’s for sure!

Well, we shall see what we get. I just really, really want the cold to hold off long enough for all these melons, pumpkins and squash to fully mature, after having such a late start this spring!

The Re-Farmer