mosquito netting

Our 2024 Garden: all sorts of things

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I decided not to continue with prepping the garden bed I started working on yesterday. That area was in full sun, it was hot, and the mosquitoes were out in full force. So, other than helping my daughter drag out the first of the 18′ logs she prepped (she also cut two 4′ pieces for the ends, and they are now waiting to be debarked and have any branch bits cut flat), I stayed inside.

Instead, I went to be unusually early for me – at about 8pm – and actually fell asleep and everything! I was awake by 5am. Usually, I do my morning rounds, have breakfast, then head back out to do the more laborious stuff. This time, I made sure to eat first, then just stayed out after doing my rounds, so work on the garden bed.

I got distracted.

The first distraction was remembering to put netting over the chimney block planters at the chain link fence.

Syndol helped.

I had a roll of netting just long enough to cover the length of these blocks. It was actually longer than needed, but this piece has a tear near one end that was “sewn” together with twine. I made sure that end was the excess netting wrapped around the far end of the blocks

So that area is now protected from getting smothered by the elm seeds.

Of course, I checked the other beds, then gathered my tools to continue working on the low raised bed.

I had the loppers with me, to cut away the roots I knew I would find.

Since I had them anyway…

… I went into the edge of the spruce grove and started clearing things away from the Saskatoon bushes. There’s a lot of chokecherries crowding them – one bunch was so entwined, I accidentally cut away some Saskatoon branches along with the chokecherry! There were quite a lot of dead, broken branches to clear away. Those were broken by the deer standing up on their hind legs to reach the berries, and pulling the branches down. There was an elm growing right from the based of some Saskatoons. I cut most of it away, but will have to come back with a saw to get the rest of it.

That was just the big stuff. The next thing to do will be to clear away the false spirea.

Again.

I had this whole area cleared of the spirea, a few years ago! It’s all completely filled in again. That stuff is so hard to get rid of, and so invasive!

That will be for another time. Getting those chokecherries out was the main thing. The Saskatoons will no longer be competing with them for water and nutrients, and they will get more sunlight, too. These Saskatoons are the healthiest ones we’ve found. There are others, out by the garage, but every year, as the berries start to form, they start to get what looks like some sort of fungus. So we want to be keeping these ones by the house well cared for and healthy.

That done, it was time to finally get back to that bed!

The first part of the job went well enough. I cleared the weeds out of the second half of the bed, and started piling the soil up onto the half I cleared yesterday, shifting the edge of the bed in the process.

I had help.

That cat needs a name.

Trouble started at the end nearest the trees, where I was breaking new ground to the 18′ mark. I already knew there were roots under there, but I kept finding more! The finer roots are one thing, but those larger ones – even the smallest of them – are much more difficult to get out. After shoveling the soil away as best I could, I took a hose to them. Partly to make them easier to see, partly to wash the grit off the roots so I could more easily cut them with the loppers and not damage the cutting edge.

I didn’t get all of them out, but I did make sure to cut them at the tree side of the roots, pull them up and dig them out as far as was reasonable, then cut them out. Anything left should die off.

I hope.

Once those were out, I started putting some of the soil back into the hole and leveling off the side where a log will be placed. Then I started digging out past the existing bed, along the 18′ line to corner marking the new 4′ width of the bed, breaking new ground.

Where I found more roots, besides the one that I was hitting when putting the marker back up.

These ones continued through to what will be the path between beds, so I cut them away to that point.

At which point, it was time for a hydration break!

One of the things I remembered to do once inside was to turn the aquarium greenhouse lights back on. Since I was there anyhow, I decided to check on the pumpkin seeds I’d scarified and set to pre-germinate.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7Mfjs0rw5J/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

They are already germinating! It’s only been about a day. Maybe a day and a half, since they were set up!

I’ve left them for now and will probably pot them up this evening.

That was so, so fast!

Well, it’s past 11 now. I should grab lunch, then head back outside.

This bed is a lot more work than I expected it to be, mostly because of those frickin’ roots!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: netting fix, and we have asparagus!

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One of the things we’ve done to deter deer from nibbling things in the old kitchen garden was drape mosquito netting over one end, using existing T-posts at the retaining wall, ropes, and pegs. Basically, it’s a tent.

We’ve had two problems with this set up. The first is… well… it’s mosquito netting. As expected, bugs can’t get through it. They get caught at the peak of the “tent”. We would find all sorts of flies, but also moths, bumblebees and clearwing moths, and the only way to let them out would be to flip one side of the netting over the top, to the other side, then later flip it back.

The other problem was also expected. Wind! Today, it got windy enough that, even though parts of the netting is attached to trees, it came loose from the posts and even started coming loose from the trees.

Today, we worked on fixing that a bit. I think this will work out better.

The netting had been affixed to the rope with clothespins. Those, of course, would come loose, but then they’d disappear. I expect we will be finding bits and pieces of them in the lawn and garden beds! We’re still using the clothespins in some areas, but now the netting is mostly on the outside, and weighed down with bricks wrapped in the excess fabric. If we need to access the things planted in the retaining wall blocks, we can just unwrap the nearest bricks and reach under the netting, then put the bricks back again. It works rather well, as I did it to get at the newly opened chive blossoms to add to our vinegar (which is now at the sit-for-2-weeks stage).

The rest of the netting is allowed to flap loosely. The movement is one more thing to startle deer away, plus it gives the insects a better chance of getting out on their own, except for at each end, where it’s fastened more tightly. We will still need to check it often, to remove any critters that might get caught. Otherwise, this should work out just fine.

Those bricks we’re finding all over the place are really handy. We need more of them! :-D

While I was working on a new bed, which I will write about in a separate post, my daughter went to check on the asparagus and strawberry spinach beds, and do a bit of weeding. She made a very exciting find!

The days have rain have made a huge impact! The purple asparagus has sprouted! They were not there when I checked the beds this morning. At least not in any size I could see. All 6 asparagus crowns now have asparagus sprouted; the ones in the photos above are the largest.

We are so totally stoked! I had no idea what to expect in their first year. That one spear is SO purple, too! :-D

Two more years, and we’ll be eating asparagus from this bed. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: more firsts, and silly kitties!

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Before I headed out to do my morning rounds, we had already hit 25C/77F. By the time I was done, it was already 30C/86F! Thankfully, there was still a breeze and some shade, so it didn’t feel too bad.

I made a couple of discoveries in the garden this morning, but before I get to those, I’ll back track to yesterday evening.

I used the cut off strip of mosquito netting left over from covering our lettuces and beets, some dollar store hula hoops, and lengths of old hose to cover part of the third spinach bed. This is just until we can make a wire mesh cover for it. I also took the trail cam from the tulips and moved it to overlook most of the garden. The only critter I saw in the files this morning was Nutmeg. :-D

After setting the netting up, I moved on to the far beds and blocks to water them. The water in the rain barrel is usually cool, but it was quite warm by the end of yesterday’s heat! On the plus side, it meant being able to use the watering can instead of the hose, and not shocking everything with cold well water, for almost everything. As the water level dropped below half, I started to refill it while still using the watering can, so it would be just cooler water instead of having to switch to the cold hose to finish watering.

I had company.

Rolando Moon has a thing about drinking from puddles! Once the water was absorbed by the soil, she decided to roll on the damp soil, then just hung out. I guess it’s nice and cool. At least she tended to stay in the middle, which is more of a trench for water, as the beans are planted on the sides. No beans are coming up yet.

Nutmeg was also hanging around. I caught him lying across some pea plants, chewing on the trellis twine! The little bugger! :-D

When I checked everything this morning, things were still damp and didn’t need to be watered, but I also spotted a whole lot of these…

The radishes are sprouting! The one in the photo is of the daikon type radishes, but I was seeing sprouts for the watermelon radishes in all the rows they were planted in, too. I was aware that radishes sprout quickly, but I’ve never grown them before, so this was a very pleasant surprise. They most certainly were not there when I was watering last night. :-)

Then I found another lovely sight.

The first potato leaves have emerged through their mulch! There are the purple fingerling potatoes. Sifting around in the mulch in the grow bags, I found other shoots coming through the soil, but these are the first ones to break through and leaf out. :-) I really look forward to seeing how these do in their grow bags.

We have a whole lot of squash transplants ready to go out, but I’m starting to rethink what to do with the summer squash. The plan was to make more beds like with the beans and peas. However, we have that long arc where we’d planted the sunflowers last year. In removing some of the old grass clipping mulch to use under some new beds, I couldn’t help but notice how much better the soil is, underneath. It’s still rocky, but we basically have a long row of soft soil, bordered by concrete hard soil. I’m thinking we should take advantage of this. It will need far less amending than starting new beds. I’m also planning to try staking the summer squash this year, but with our without stakes, deer don’t like those prickly squash plants, so it could act as a sort of fence for the rest.

I sorted through our transplants while hardening them off, and we have a lot of nice, strong melons. Between those and the winter squash, and the two types of gourds that successfully germinated, we might not actually have room for it all on the squash tunnel. So I’m thinking we can plant as much as we can fit of each type at the squash tunnel, then whatever is left over can be planted in other areas. Without trellising, these should spread out quite a bit over the ground, and we’ll be able to give them lots of space, and we would just need to haul soil over to make hills, rather than beds. This would allow us to compare how well they do, between left to grow on the ground, or up a trellis.

What I might end up doing is getting the Montana Morado corn done, first. They are doing very well, but will start outgrowing their cups soon. Since the toilet paper tube pots didn’t work out, I’m really hoping they won’t suffer from transplant shock too badly. In zone 3 gardening groups. I’ve read from people who warn against transplanting corn completely, because they don’t handle it well, to people who say they do it all the time, every year, and have never had issues. I suspect type of corn can make a difference, and I seem to be the first person in all of these groups to try and grow purple corn in our zone!

I’m really excited to see how they do!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: netted

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The heat has kept us indoors, for the must part, but a daughter and I did make a trip into town for some errands. I took advantage of the trip to see if the dollar store had stocked up on pinwheels and whirlygigs. They have not, but I did get their last hula hoops, to use as supports in the garden beds.

The post office was one of our stops, and happily, the mosquito netting we ordered has finally come in!

My daughter had ordered it to protect our lettuces in the retaining wall blocks, and the beets planted near them, from deer.

We used the T posts that I was never able to remove when we cleaned up the fence that used to be around this garden. Like most of what we’re doing this year, this is temporary, so we just used rope, tent pegs and clothes pins to drape it over the plants. It was long enough that we cut some off at one end, to use somewhere else. Holes and slits were cut into sections of it so it could be tied to the ornamental apple trees.

It should be interesting to see how it holds out if we get the potential storms over the next couple of days. I don’t expect the clothes pins to hold, but it’s attached to the trees solidly enough, it shouldn’t blow away completely. Meanwhile, it should be able to withstand normal rain and winds.

Even though we were doing this in the shade, it was still ridiculously hot, and we didn’t even try to do anything else outside.

I think the different things we’re using to startle away the deer seem to be working. The tulip cam is being triggered by wind blowing the dandelions in front of it. Other than that, we’re seeing the odd cat going by, or a bird on the ground in front of the camera. Nothing is going for the tulips, and aside from that one day, there have been no deer picked up by the camera. Not even a skunk, and I saw two of them in the yard, yesterday!

I’m thinking of moving the camera to overlook the big garden. Depending on where I set it up, it should be able to cover the beds near the house, as well as anything large enough that goes near the far beds. That should tell us if deer are still trying to go through the old garden area or not.

The forecasts have changed again, and they’re now predicting storms 2 days from now, instead of over the next couple of days. Once things cool down some more, and we go out to do the evening watering, we can move the trail cam over. The leftover mosquito netting is so light, I might just set it over the last spinach bed as a floating row cover, until we can build another wire mesh cover.

If this netting works out, we will order more. If not… well. We tried! :-D

The Re-Farmer