I’ve never seen anything like it before. I was looking at it with my daughter later on and we were wondering about those yellow things near the tassels. As I was handling it, that widened yellow section snapped right off. The inside was like a sponge. Very odd!
I wasn’t expecting to harvest anything this morning, but I did end up gathering a few things.
There was one ripe Sub Arctic Plenty tomato, plus I saw some Chocolate Cherry tomatoes through the greenery that I went ahead and grabbed. Turned out only one of them was really ripe, but the others will ripen indoors. I could only find a couple of yellow bush beans to harvest.
I went ahead and harvested the largest of the kohlrabi, which all turned out to be purple Vienna. I was smart this time and used the loppers to cut them free, rather than a knife. One of them looks like a giant pine cone or something! I suspect that one will be more woody in texture.
After harvesting the kohlrabi, I decided to weed out the invading mint by harvesting it, too. I’m not sure what I want to do with it yet. I might just make a big pot of fresh mint tea.
Good for the digestion.
We had another rather cold night last night, with the low dropping below 10C/50F. Today’s high is expected to reach only 18C/64F – which is the perfect temperature, to me! It would be good for the garden, too, if it weren’t for the lows.
Over the next few days, things will get warmer, and possibly even reaching above 30C/86F, with lows above 20C/68F. Which will hopefully give the garden a chance to make up for the occasional cold night.
Looking at the long range forecast into September, the lows in the first couple of weeks look like we might be getting frost around the expected average of September 10. If not frost, then some things will at least need to be covered for the night.
I am beginning to suspect we will not only not have the long, mild fall this year I was hoping for, but possibly an early winter. For the past week or so, I’ve started to see more garter snakes on the roads.
They would normally start returning to their dens in September, not August.
Well, if things done get a chance to fully mature this year, I hope to at least be able to do the planned winter sowing, just before the ground freezes, so we can get a head start on next year. If how things worked out this year is any example, this may be the best way to ensure reliable harvests from year to year. We’ll also need to really focus on the raised bed covers, as they get built, so that we can use them to extend our growing season as much as possible.
It’s definitely been a mixed bag with how things are in the garden this year! I’m rather looking forward to after it’s all done, and I start doing my annual garden analysis posts.
That whole “get outside early, before it gets hot” thing is just not working. After finishing my morning rounds, it was already 25C/77F, with the humidex putting it at 31C/88F! As I write this, it’s actually cooled down a tiny bit, but it’s going to go right back up again this afternoon.
One of the garden beds that has me a bit perplexed is the eggplant and hot pepper bed. I have not tried to replace the plastic around the box frame, that got shredded by the wind, so they’ve been exposed to the wind and temperatures like everything else beside them. That bed does get a bit more sun than the other two beside it. The peppers and eggplants, though, just don’t seem to be growing. This seems like more than transplant shock. They’re just stagnating, and I don’t know why.
Which makes what progress I am seeing in them a bit surprising.
As small as they are, I am seeing flowers opening up among both the Classic eggplant, and the Little Finger eggplant. There are flowers on the Cheyenne hot peppers, too, but I would almost expect that. These peppers were started the earliest. They should be big and bushy and have fruit developing by now, so having a few flowers appear is late for those. For the eggplant, though, would have expected flowers to appear after they’d gotten much better. Especially considering how large the fruit is supposed to get at maturity. The normal fruit size, even for the Little Finger variety, is bigger than the plants are now!
Aside from that mystery, I found a couple of ripe strawberries among the older plants in the asparagus bed. Yesterday evening, I’d picked a few from the bare root strawberries that were planted this spring, and the tiny strawberries grown from seed in the old kitchen garden. The strawberries in the asparagus bed are having the hardest time of it, because the deer keep eating the leaves, so anything out of there is bonus.
There are sugar snap pea pods developing, and I’d picked a couple last night. This morning, there was just one, ready to pick. I’m only picking these because, the more they are harvested from, the more they will produce.
The real bonus this morning was the garlic scapes!
Almost all of the scapes were ready to be harvested. Of the ones remaining, they should be ready to harvest in the next day or two. So we’ll probably have one last harvest, and then be done for scapes for the year.
We need to plant more garlic. 😄
The mint that keeps trying to take over the bed is managing to get into the raised rectangular bed with garlic, tomatoes, onions and shallots in it. Since I was weeding them out, anyhow, I picked enough for a day’s use.
It’s not much of a harvest, and this year, it doesn’t look like we’ll get much that can be harvested through the summer. The bush beans have been decimated by slugs, so I don’t expect anything from them anymore. They mature fast enough that I could replant, but there’s no point, unless we can get rid of the slugs.
I should pick up some cheap beer for slug traps. Even the last Zucca melon is getting decimated, and it’s of a size they normally wouldn’t be able to damage that much. There is evidence of slug damage on some of the melons and winter squash, and at least a couple of melons have simply disappeared, but they seem to really like the Zucca melon – enough to get up into that kiddie pool raised bed it’s planted in!
The shelling peas are of a size that they need to be trained up into the trellis netting. There are very few pole beans, but they are getting tall enough that trellis netting needs to be added on that side of the bed, too.
The hot pepper growth has been stagnant, but so have the bell peppers in the high raised bed. They’re not getting any bigger, though they certainly look healthy, small as they are, and some of them are starting to bloom, too!
Most of the tomato varieties are also showing blooms. The only ones that aren’t are the last San Marzano transplants. Considering how much later they were planted, that’s not a surprise. The ones planted in the old kitchen garden almost all have flowers and are getting tall enough we’re going to have to start clipping them to their bamboo stake supports.
Along with all that, we need to get the weed trimmer and lawn mowers out before the grass gets too tall again. We still have standing water in places, and the ground is still saturated in others, but we should still be able to get at least some of the mowing done. That will give us grass clippings we can add to some of the garden beds as mulch, too.
Also on the list it so finish assembling the log frame on the one low raised bed. I was able to accumulate more cardboard that I plan to put under the logs, first. So they’ll need to be rolled away, the ground under where they will go needed to be levelled off more, the carboard laid down as a weed barrier, then the logs rolled back and permanently attached to each other. I just plan to cut notches in the shorter end pieces to fit them over the ends of the side pieces, to set them snug against each other. I still have some broken pieces plant supports I got a few years ago. They were hollow metal tubes coated in plastic, and with so many rocks in our soil, they broke very easily. I’ve used some of them, already, on the current trellis bed. I used an auger bit on my drill to make a hole through the logs at the short ends, then drove the broken lengths of supports in, to hold them together. I plan to do the same thing when assembling the new frame. It needs to be done very soon, as the winter squash is starting to grow into the paths, and will soon be too big to move out of the way without damaging them.
Meanwhile, the temperature and humidex is already starting to get hotter again. Our humidity levels are supposed to reach over 90% at times. I’m amazed we have an only 25% chance of rain this evening. I would have expected thunderstorm warnings. We do have a small system with storms in it passing us to the north, but not anywhere near where we are.
Well, summer is summer, and I’d better get used to the heat, if I’m going to get anything done.
The mosquitoes, on the other hand, are something I will never get used to!! Mosquitoes, horseflies, deer flies… they’re all just brutal this year!
Yesterday, I weeded mint out of the beet bed – one entire end was completely stunted because they were shaded out – then kept on going, harvesting mint from the path as well. The sump pump drains into here, and the growth is absolutely lush! By the time I was done, I had a huge arm full! This is all mint that was here before we moved in, so we have no idea what variety it is. I know it’s not spearmint. I don’t think it’s peppermint, either, but I really can’t say for sure.
Once inside, I took the best leaves off the stems and gave them a wash. Then I cleaned up and dragged in the old window screens we used last year for curing onions, drying spinach, etc. I covered the mesh with paper towels, then set out as many leaves as I could fit onto them to dry.
I didn’t even use half of what I’d gathered!
Yes, this is the drying mint!
I used small glasses and jars as spacers so we could stack the screens on top of each other, but the cats were incredibly interested in what was going on. So we put more little jars as spacers on the top and covered the whole thing with a cloth. We still caught them on top of the stack, but at least the cloth kept the leaves clean.
Then, some time later, my daughter got Cheddar out from under the cloth at one end. *sigh* We tucked the ends under the bottom screen as best we could.
When I lifted the cloth on one side this morning, however, I found the cats had still managed to get under it!
I salvaged what I could and set it up again on the old dishwasher that’s still waiting to be taken out to the junk pile. Since the leaves have shrunk, I was able to fit them closer together on the screens that needed to be redone. For now, we’re keeping the sheet off, so they can get more air circulation.
Drying things on screens like this can work quite well, but protecting it from the cats is a problem!
Meanwhile, I used fresh mint to make a big pot of strong mint tea this morning, and there is still lots left in the fridge. There is much more to harvest in the garden, as we want, too.
The chives are blooming right now and ready to harvest if we want to make infused chive blossom oil or vinegar again. We have the olive oil to do that now, but I won’t be picking up more of the white wine vinegar I like to use until we do our next city trip. I might just harvest the chives, anyway, and freeze the extra until we are ready to make the infusion.
I love that we can already start harvesting things and preserving them!
I had a very enthusiastic crowd waiting for me this morning. Including the new edition. I was even able to pet her a few times, though she kept moving away when I did.
But yes, I was able to confirm. Our new addition is a she.
I just hope that, wherever she came from, she’s already fixed.
In the end, I counted 19 cats this morning. Only Rosencrantz was missing. :-)
My morning rounds now include going to the very corner of the property to check on the sign. No vandalism! (yet?)
What I found interesting is that the squash tunnel was shaded. It is only this time of year that the shadows from the spruce grove reach this far. In the summer, the squash tunnel gets full sun, all day. The main garden area’s beds, meanwhile, are now in pretty much full shade all day. What a difference, time of year makes!
The transplanted mint is looking just fine; not at all droopy from being moved.
One of the empty blocks, however, seems to attracted a critter. Possibly a skunk digging for grubs. Whatever it was, it lost us some of the soil in those openings around the edges! I want to fill those with sand or gravel.
After I finish my rounds, I spend some time going over the trail cam files. We had a long list of things to work on outside, while it is still relatively warm in the afternoon. I was going to head out right after having lunch, then calling my mom to arrange to bring her to see the sign tomorrow.
She called me first.
She wanted to come today.
I told her I was thinking of tomorrow, because it’s such a warm day, and we have lots to do outside. She said the warm day was why she wanted to come today, because it would be harder for her when it was cooler. And I could spare an hour for her, couldn’t I?
Which would mean just driving her over to see the sign, taking some photos of her next to it, then driving her home. Was that what she was wanting to do?
Yes.
Okay.
So off I head to the town she lives in, and when I get there, she is cleaning out her purse and preparing a list of things she needs.
Since I’m there with her car, anyhow…
Okay, so we’ve added grocery shopping to the list. No worries.
We head back to the farm and as we come to our driveway, my Mom suggests we go straight to where the sign is from the road, not in the driveway. As we get closer, however, she suggested we keep going to look at the other quarter section, first. Just a drive by. This was something she had talked about wanting to go before, so I was expecting it. We did the drive, saw that it looks like the renter has moved his cows to that quarter, since there is a hay bale, salt blocks and a feeder set up near the gate. At the far end of the property is an intersection I can turn around at, then back we went to the sigh. I pulled over on the road, and there was thankfully a nice level spot she could go over with her walker. We got several pictures, and then back to the car.
Did she want to see what I did with the outhouse? I ask.
Oh, yes! was her enthusiastic reply.
I am such an idiot.
First, we drove over to the old workshop that is now completely filled with all my parents’ stuff we cleared out of the house. There was an old framed print she wanted. This was something else that had come up in past conversation, so we too the opportunity to grab that. Then we drove into the yard, and I backed up towards the outhouse.
My mother being ticked off that I did that, instead of parking further ahead, as usual, should have been my first warning.
To make it short, because I really don’t want to relive the experience, my mother decided to tour the inner yards, starting with the newly finished brick lined bed where the tomatoes were (she liked that, at least), but not until after making snide comments about the newly framed low beds where we have two types of garlic planted (so this is where you’re putting the garden now, is it? Uhm… no, Mom. It’s just the garlic).
I tried several times to redirect her to the outhouse, and she ignored me every time. As she worked her way around the yard, she made sure to give me a hard time about the garbage pile, which we need to hire someone to haul away for us (she didn’t have much to say when I pointed out this was garbage we found all around the yard that’s now in one place), acted surprised about the tire planters being moved, even though she’s been here since they were moved, and had just walked past the one that isn’t wrecked and could be used again), made sure to tell me to leave the spruce tree she planted at the chain link fence (I’s talked about transplanting it, before it gets so big it tears the fence apart, shortly after we moved out here, and she went ballistic on me, so I didn’t say anything this time). I commented on the second one that had been there dying, and she lectured me on how I should have watered it (it was killed by the cold, two winters ago), made numerous comments about the things I should have done around the yard (things I would have been doing, if she hadn’t asked me to bring her over), asked why I’d cut down the crab apple tree by the old compost, and when I told her it had died of diseased, lectured me about watering things again. Because, in her mind, if you water the trees, they won’t get disease. Then she mocked and laughed at me for building the high raised bed, the squash tunnel, the trellises and the low raised beds. No one does things like that, you see. They just plowed the whole thing.
Then she nagged me about various other things as she worked her way around the yard. When I thought she was finally going to the outhouse, she ended up going to the back door of the garage. She wanted to see the wood chipper.
That door leads to where her car is parked.
I tried to get her to go around, but she wrestled her walker through to door, so she could snoop in the garage. Which was have not even come close to cleaning up. I got the chipper out for her to see, and she really liked that, but then complained because there were still branch piles. Then she complained about how ugly they looked, and how ugly the post pounder my late brother built looked. I’d covered it with a tarp I’d found in the barn that was big enough, but after several years, the wind has torn it to shreds. We don’t have anything else big enough to protect it. But it looks ugly, and people can see it from the road, so it needs to be covered.
Eventually, we made our way back into the yard and…
She went to the car to leave.
By then, I’d opened the door to the outhouse, but hadn’t put the mat back because I wanted her to see how nice the floor looked, too.
She wouldn’t go near it. She just glanced over and said she could see it through the door. Then got into the car.
So, I put the mat back, closed up the outhouse, put her walker into the car, then we headed out.
Along the drive home, I tried to chat and mentioned the electric chainsaw we got. She mocked me about it, but in such a way that I didn’t understand her “joke” at all. Which then led to a whole slough of mockery.
I shouldn’t be using a chainsaw. I shouldn’t be doing men’s work. I need a man. Also, I’ve done nothing at the farm at all. Apparently, I’m a weak, useless, stupid woman who shouldn’t do actual work, except for the stuff that she used to do on the farm (while everything else magically did itself, apparently), which I am not doing right, because I haven’t done it yet, but she thinks I should have done it by now, or I’m not doing it the way she did, therefore I’m doing it wrong.
Oh, I forgot. At one point, when I told her that I’d lost a day of work by having to drive her around, she told me, what work? I don’t have cows to milk! What work am I doing? I don’t have any work.
Well, I called her on her behaviour, and pointed out that she shows no appreciation, gratitude or kindness. To which I got a sanctimonious, “yes, yes, get that off your chest” response. Because, clearly, I’m the one with the problem, and her cruelty and insults are neither cruel nor insulting.
*sigh*
Still, when we got back to her town, we were civil. I helped her with her grocery shopping, though she brought up getting an apple pie to have with tea when we got back to her place. I told her I didn’t have time to stop for tea, but she could get one if she wanted.
She didn’t.
Once at her place, I put her groceries away and she was going to give me some money for gas, which I do appreciate. She then brought out a bill (almost enough to cover the amount of gas spent in driving, but I do still appreciate it!) and told me, if I’d invited her inside for tea, I would have gotten more.
I told her, I didn’t realize that was an expectation.
By the time I left and put some gas in the tank, it was so late, I couldn’t even stop at the post office to pick up a package. My day was wasted. There was no time to even start anything when I got back, because I wouldn’t have enough time to finish before the light was gone.
I’m just so ticked off right now. After talking with my husband and telling him some of how it went, his response is, not to have her back here again. And at this point, I can’t disagree.
My mother is why we are living here. We came here to take care of the place for her. Now that the ownership has been transferred to my brother, I still try to respect her wishes as much as possible, and keep her informed of how things are going. In the end, though, she doesn’t own this place. My brother does. And he is very happy with what we are doing, and with our various plans for improving the place. He is our “landlord”. Not my mother. She has no actual say in how this place is run, and she certainly has no right to verbally abuse me.
I am lost past the stage where she can actually hurt me anymore, but my goodness, she can drain every bit of energy out of me. I feel more exhausted from a few hours with her – and it wasn’t even an unusually bad visit! – than I would have felt if I’d spend those same hours doing manual labour. Mental exhaustion is far more difficult to recover from than physical exhaustion. Still, to look at the bright side, at least there wasn’t a single racist rant or shouting about political issues she doesn’t understand, either.
Thank God my brother now owns this place. He and his wife more than make up for all the trouble my mother causes. They are such awesome people, and make it all worthwhile.
The Re-Farmer 