I had a pleasant surprise when I first went outside to do my morning rounds. Rosencrantz and her kittens were playing at the bottom of the little shrine, on the INSIDE of the chain link fence!
So I found a couple of containers and put food and water out for them. Not longer after, I saw this.
The grey and white kitten ran off when it saw me, but the orange one stayed. This would be their first time eating kibble and the orange baby seems to really like it!
It was also brave enough – or hungry enough! – to stay eating after Mom left.
After finishing my rounds outside, I was just about to settle at the computer to go over the trail cam files when I saw movement out in the garden.
It was a groundhog, making its way towards the beds.
When I saw it stop and start going after some onions, I dashed out to chase it away. (Checking later, it did not eat any of the onions, but when I was weeding the carrots in the next bed earlier, I’d noticed some of the greens had been nibbled on. Deer, I thought, but maybe not? What do groundhogs eat, anyway?)
As I was making noise to chase the groundhog away from the beds, I saw it go under the pile of branched I’d pruned from the nearby trees. A pile we should have moved long ago. :-/
So I went over to the pile and shook the branches to chase it out.
Nothing.
Moved around to get at some other branches.
Nothing.
Mover around and…
What on earth is that?
Well, that explains why it wasn’t running out from under the branch pile. It has a den under there!
Those larger branches on the left? I’d put those there not very long ago. They had been set aside for potential use, but when I needed to mow around the pile, I moved them on top. That hole was not there when I did it, which means it was dug some time within the last week or so.
I was able to stick my phone through the branches to try and get a better picture.
That is a pretty big hole! But then, so was the groundhog.
I knew there had to be dens around somewhere, and suspect there is at least one under the big branch pile in the outer yard, but this is the first one we’ve actually seen.
I find myself looking at all that sand and gravel piled up outside the opening. I know the top soil isn’t very deep, but this really shows what our ground is like under it.
Well, I guess this is a good incentive to finally move that branch pile! Then to see what we can do to persuade the groundhog to find somewhere else to live. Preferably not in the yard at all!
The weather forecast said that we would be cooler today.
They lied.
When I did my morning rounds, it was already above 20C/68F, and we easily hit 28C/82F this afternoon, with a humidex above 30C/86F. Which meant that we spent as much of the day indoors, out of the heat, as we could. Thankfully, the way things are oriented, we can keep certain windows open to allow a cross breeze without heating the house up.
The cats appreciate that.
Yes, we leave the little step ladder at the door, just so they can look out the window! It was so funny to watch these to, with their matching positions, heads turning and tail tips twitching, in unison! Hard to believe that little Layendecker is now just as big as Cheddar! With the smaller cats, three of them can fit up there, but these big boys fill up the whole stop step! :-D
I did have to make a run into town, as we ran out of kibble for the outside cats. While I was there, I picked up some ingredients for my daughters. Yesterday, they finished off one of the giant bowls of spinach to make a spinach soup.
We’d already finished off one giant bowl, mostly through dehydrating (using the screens in the sun room didn’t work, so we did batches in the oven). When making the soup, that huge bowl cooked down to a remarkable small amount in the stock pot! :-D With my trip into town, the girls have enough to make a huge batch of baked spinach dip, which we plan to enjoy while watching watching Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett and David Burke.
It’s going to be a late one, though. We didn’t get back from working on the garden until past 10pm. I had tried going out a bit earlier to start prepping the spinach beds to plant in again, but those beds are in full sun. I wasn’t interested in getting heat stroke! It didn’t get cool enough to head out again until past 8:30pm.
The girls did the evening watering while I worked on the beds.
The logs were added after we’d started making the beds, so once I’d cleared away the remains of the spinach plants and the weeds, I took advantage of the situation to level the beds out, and create a bit of a ridge around the edges, to help keep the water from draining down the sides – and taking the soil with it. I used a garden fork to loosen the soil, to more easily pull the roots out. I was most pleased with how keep the tines could go, without any sort of resistance. This bed would handle root vegetables very well!
I had “help” while I was working.
Nutmeg could not get enough attention! :-) While I was pulling out roots and weeds, he kept getting under me, demanding pets, and rolling around in the freshly turned soil, sometimes rolling right off the edge of the garden bed – just like his brother does on our beds, indoors! Unfortunately, when I was using the garden fork, he had a terrible habit of suddenly lunging at the fork to “catch” it, even as I was stabbing it into the soil.
This bed was surprisingly different from the first one. When pushing the fork into the soil, I would quickly go through the raised part of the bed – about 8 inches – then hit solid. I wasn’t hitting rocks. Just rock hard soil! The last bed was much the same, though not as bad as this one. There is a difference between them. The first bed I worked on had been a squash bed, mulched with straw, last year. These two beds were a last minute change. When I’d prepped the area last fall, I’d made three smaller beds oriented East-West, where three pumpkin hills had been. This spring, I decided to make these two larger beds, oriented North-South. The soil beneath would be a mix of soil that had been turned in the fall, and walking paths. It’s remarkable what a difference that one season of use the previous year has made in the soil of that first bed.
All three beds are now prepared and ready for planting! We will be planting lettuces in succession along one side of each bed.
Since the radishes we interplanted with the corn all disappeared, and I ended up picking up more. Three different varieties to try, though I couldn’t find a daikon type that my daughter likes. They are fast maturing, so we should be able to grow some radishes, and still be able to grow more spinach in these beds for a fall crop.
We’re not actually fans of radishes in general, so we won’t be planting many. I do want to leave some to fully mature. I’ve read that radish pods are very tasty, but it’s not something available in stores, and I’d like to try them. From what I’ve read in the past, radishes used to be grown for their pods, not their roots, and the pods can be canned as well. It should be an interesting experiment. I’m still disappointed that none of the ones we planted earlier survived, even though they did germinate so quickly. I had specially ordered those varieties for my daughter. :-(
We’ll just have to try them again, next year!
Well my other daughter had just swung by to inform me that the baked spinach dip is ready! I am really looking forward to it! :-)
While heading out to start the evening watering, I spotted Butterscotch’s babies coming out to play.
Or should I say, my daughter spotted them. I’d gone out to help my mother with errands, then did a few of my own, so I pulled up to the house to unload the car. My daughter later parked it for me, and spotted them while returning to the house. She plunked herself down on the ground with a long stick to wiggle at them, and they were very interested! :-D Not enough to come close, though, but she’s working on it!
While we were finishing up the evening watering, I happened to see movement in the junk pile by the chain link fence.
Rosencrantz had brought her babies!
I didn’t dare get too close, so zooming in with my phone was the best I could do.
It looks like she only has the two of them. They are so adorable! I don’t know where she has her “nest”, other than it was not in the junk pile, so I am glad that she is starting to bring them closer to the house.
So this is now two litters accounted for. I know Junk Pile cat has had a litter, and from the looks of her teats, I’d say she has a litter of six. Until she starts bringing them to the yard, we won’t know if she has six surviving kittens. There’s also Ghost Baby, who is too feral for us to even know if she’s female. We’re just assuming she is, and that there is another litter somewhere for us to discover.
I got to see the kittens again this evening, but this morning, I had quite the critter surprise!
To top up our potato grow bags, I headed to the outer hard with the wheelbarrow, with the tools needed to rake up some grass clippings for much, and get a load of garden soil from the pile.
As I headed passed the big branch pile, I saw movement at the garden soil. Two furry creatures, right where I needed to go to shovel soil!
When they saw me, one of them dashed under the branches, but the other froze in place.
Watching me.
Even as I came closer, it didn’t move.
Which means I finally got a good picture of our mystery critter!
It didn’t move away until I picked up the shovel and started walking right up to it! Then it dashed under the branch pile, too.
I have no idea what they were doing on the dirt pile. They weren’t digging or anything. They seemed to be just looking around. Maybe playing?
As I came back several times to get more soil or rake up more clippings, I had to pass the branch pile each time. A couple of times, the branch pile screamed at me! Of all the names these guys have – woodchuck, groundhog, marmot, etc. – whistle pig seems the most appropriate to the noise they make!
Gosh, it’s so cuty.
Speaking of cute…
As I finished the evening watering and came around to the front of the house to put things away, I saw a skunk running out of the kibbled house and towards the storage house. As I went to the sun room, I saw the mama skunk peek out at me, her babies tucked close against her. When she saw me staying by the house, she decided it was safe to head towards the kibble house.
With her THREE babies!
Three! I hadn’t seen the third one before!
Though they went for the kibble house, when I came around the other side to look at them, they all ran off again, this time leaving the yard completely.
While going back and forth to put things away, I paused for a while to say hello to the kittens, who were with Butterscotch at their food and water bowls.
I was never able to get a picture with the calico, though.
I left a camp chair near the food bowl, so we can sit comfortably while letting the kittens get used to us. This kitten was very fascinated by the wiggling toe of my shoe!
I just managed to get a picture of her when she decided to stand up on her hind legs and bat at her mother. :-D
They were in the junk pile by the house. Her favorite kitten spot. Whether they’ve been there this whole time, or if she recently moved them there, I don’t know, but the girls spotted them today. There are four of them.
My younger daughter had gone out to check on some new flowers blooming and spotted them. She sat on the ground and they came up to her. She was able to touch three of them. They were pretty chill about it.
When I came by, I could see movement among the spirea, but both of us being there seemed to be too much for them, so I went back to what I was working on.
Butterscotch was pretty chill about me being there! Which was a bit of a surprise. She has been very stand-offish of late, and most of the time, won’t even let me pet her. This evening, she was downright cuddly.
When I had the chance, I brought over some kibble and water near the junk pile, wetting down the kibble a bit so it would be soft for the babies.
The kittens got their first taste of kibble today.
In the low light, plus trying to zoom in, it was hard to get decent photos. The one next to Butterscotch’s head REALLY loved the kibble! It got right in the middle of the pile of food and stayed eating almost the entire time I was there.
The little calico had a bit, then went off to play.
Unfortunately, the girls are already talking about snagging the kittens and bringing them inside! At least the calico, since it’s most likely to be female. We still need to adopt out cats we already have inside, never mind bringing more in.
I’m not impressed that they’re even considering it.
Me, I’m happy to see the kittens, happy to work on socializing them, and happy to let them stay outdoors!
I wanted to share some photos from this morning’s rounds, but first, some photos from last night.
May I introduce you to, The Three Croissants.
Nicco, Beep Beep and Susan, all nestled together! Can they get any cuter? :-D
While putting things away for the evening, I noticed my mother’s lilies had started to bloom. Thye practically glow in the evening light!
If all goes to plan, we will be dividing these up this fall, and transplanting some in a new bed where the potatoes in their grow bags are now.
We had quite the crowd of hungry kitties this morning! Ghost Baby showed up not long after.
I expect the mamas will start bringing their babies over for food some time soon. I wish I knew where they were. I’d leave food out nearby for them, if I could. I’ve spotted mamas going by carrying various rodents, though, so the mamas are obviously taking care of that, themselves. It just makes less work for them if we can supplement with kibble! That, and there’s a better chance of the kittens getting used to humans.
Of course, I had to check the newest transplants. We got another heavy rain last night, that lasted for a couple of hours. They seem to have handled it quite well. I took this photo from the gourd end of the row. In the foreground are the 4 Ozark Nest Egg gourds (you can just barely see one of them, it’s so tiny!). By the fence post is the Thai Bottle gourd. You can’t see it in the photo, but hidden under one of the leaves is a second sprout!
This is what’s left of our straw! I’d taken so much from the bottom, where it was breaking down the most, that the whole thing finally just fell over. We should have enough to mulch the summer squash, and hopefully have some to add to the transplants at the squash tunnel, but I doubt there will be much left by then. I’ll have to contact the renter to see about getting another bale. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get hay next time. I’m deliberately asking for older bales that aren’t good for feed anymore, since it will be used only for mulching, but when I asked about it last time, they had none, as they spread them on their crop fields and plow them under to amend the soil.
Today, we’re looking at a high of 27C/81F, though we are already at 25C/77F as I write this, so I would not be surprised if we get hotter. The next couple of days should be just a degree or two cooler, then we’re looking at possible thunderstorms again. Hopefully, we’ll have the squash tunnel and pea trellises finished before then! We’ll see how things work out. One of my daughters has been feeling quite ill lately, and I’m pretty sure it’s the heat. :-( Summer is their least favorite time of the year!
There is one other down side to this time of year that I was really noticing this morning. The horseflies are out in full force! I had a buzzing crowd of them, dive bombing my head, from the moment I stepped outside to the moment I stepped back into the house – and even then, it was only because I dashed in and closed the door fast enough. Having them bounce off my head is annoying enough (at least they weren’t biting!), but they were even getting caught up in my hair bun. They already seem to be unusually bad this year.
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!
Not that long ago, we were dealing with freezing temperatures. Now we’ve got a heat wave!
Today’s high was predicted to be 24C/77F. Instead, we reached 28C/82F. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 28C… does that mean we’ll be going to break 30C/86F? :-(
Hot as it was, we needed to get started on the squash tunnel. Thankfully, we could at least work in mostly shade.
The first thing to do was go through our pile of poplar we’ve cleared out of the spruce grove, and pick the strongest, straightest ones. Straight for the first 7 feet, at least!
The upright supports were cut to 7 feet, but there was still enough from each of them to cut cross pieces at 5 1/2 feet. Of those, the strongest ones were selected, and at least 3 inches was trimmed from each end to have a narrower, flattish part to attach to the uprights.
While preparing to screw the pieces together, I found our first wood tick of the season! We ended up finding a couple more, later on.
Time to dig out the bug spray to go with the sun screen… :-(
The uprights need to be 5 feet apart, and the cross pieces were to be attached to their tops. I measured out and shoved some sticks into the ground as guides. The bottoms of the uprights would be centered at the pegs at their based, while the tops would be placed with the two sticks at the top on the outsides, to have them lying parallel at 5 feet. The cross piece could then be laid out and the flat sides lined up to the tops. Pilot holes were then drilled and they were screwed in place.
Which sounds a lot easier than it actually was. A few cross pieces needed extra trimming to rest against tops of the uprights. Sometimes, the uprights needed to be turned until they all fit together as flush as possible. Still, it got done.
There they are! Five sets up upright supports for the squash tunnel! They just needed to be dragged out to where the squash tunnel will be set up.
At this point, they are very rickety. Unfortunately, with some of the screws pulled right out of the wood, so we had to redo them with longer screws. Which, thankfully, we had!
By this point, we’d reached that 28C/82F, so once we finished with these, we packed everything away and went indoors to get out of the heat for a few hours. The next stage was to dig the post holes, and there wasn’t any shade to be had, so we waited.
When I finally did head out, I first took the time to water the garden beds and blocks from the rain barrel by the peas. I was able to use the watering can to water everything but the Dorinny corn before the barrel was too low for me to refill the watering can anymore.
While I was watering, I found a friend.
Such a cute little frog!!
Then it was time to start the post holes. Each spot was marked with a flag, so I started by using the space to stab out a circle around each flag, then moving it so I could remove the sod. Once the sod was out, I went in with a hand trowel to take out the bigger rocks, then used a lopper to take out the many roots I found.
I had company.
I love how Rolando Moon will just hang out while we’re working outside. She doesn’t want us to pay attention to her. She just wants to be close by. She even settled down for a nap!
Finally, I brought over the post hole digger and got to work. It’s pretty much a one person job, so the girls took care of the evening watering, refilled the rain barrel by the peas, and watered the last corn block. Once the barrel was full, I decided to set up the sprinkler over the corn and sunflower blocks, to make sure the seeds got the moisture they need to germinate. Going over them with the watering can may or may not have been enough, so I wanted to make sure they got a thorough soaking while I continued digging post holes.
All done! Ten post holes, all 5 feet apart.
That was it for today!!
Getting those supports in will be a three person job. Particularly since they are still so wonky. Two people will be needed to place the supports into the holes, while the third person will back fill the holes. They will still be rather fragile until the cross pieces are added to the sides. We weren’t able to pick up a cordless drill on this month’s budget, so we’re going to have to string together a whole bunch of extension cords to drill the pilot holes! The cross pieces at the top should have enough extra length that we can put a screw through them, into the side cross pieces, too. We’re all short, though, so we’ll need a step ladder to do that!
I want to add cross pieces near the bottoms of each side, too. We’ll need a total of 16 pieces to do tops and bottoms of both sides, and then we can put either wire mesh or netting for the vines to climb up and over the tunnel. Then, we can start making the beds themselves, to transplant the winter squash, gourds and melons into. These will be on the outside of the tunnel supports only, keeping the tunnel nice and wide on the inside. If all grows well, it should create a nice shaded space that we can put chairs in, to rest and enjoy while tending the garden. :-)
Next on the list are the beds for the summer squash, and the block for the Montana Morado corn. They’re getting quite big in their cups, and hardening off nicely. I hope they handle being transplanted okay! I do with the toilet paper tubes had worked out. That would have been much better and less disruptive to the roots. Well, we’ll know for next time: pre-soak the growing medium before putting it into the tubes!
The next week or so is going to be very, very busy!
We had a cold, wet night last night, and this morning, all of the outside cats where there to greet me.
Even the shy ones!
Ghost Baby, in the back, is the shiest of them all, still. We still don’t know if Ghost is a he or a she, but if it’s a she, she likely has babies somewhere.
Do you see how Nutmeg, in the foreground, is positioned, with his chest so low to the ground like that? Ginger does that all the time. It’s one of those mannerisms that I thought was due to the missing leg, but both brothers do it. I haven’t seen if Creamsicle Jr. does it, too; he’s more likely to move away from any people than maintain his behaviour with other cats.
As large as we made the kibble house, and with so many food bowls spread out inside, we still get some minor battles between the cats. Rosencrantz and Ghost Baby tend to not be able to eat until after the more aggressive cats, like Butterscotch and Rolando Moon, have moved on. The plan was to make a second, smaller, shelter for the water bowls in the winter. I am now thinking to match the size (if we can scrounge the materials), and split the food and water bowls between the two shelters. That should reduce feline fracases.
Once the critters were fed, I went to check on the tulips and switch out the memory card on the trail cam.
Yes, the tulip carnage continued.
More flower buds were missing, though it didn’t look like any more leaves were eaten away. I was very disappointed to see damage to this Bull’s Eye tulip. Of the 8 bulbs planted, three had come up, and then this fourth one finally emerged, way in the back. It looks like the damage done to it was from something digging next to it, though, not from something trying to eat it. The flower bulb is still intact, if somewhat the worse for wear, and only one leaf was torn right off.
After switching the memory card out on the trail cam still at the driveway, I made sure to check the rest of the garden beds. I saw no signs of frost this morning, though there could have been some during the night. I think we had rain, though, so that would have helped. I’m happy to say that I saw no signs of frost damage on anything.
Unfortunately, I did find other damage.
The Heritage variety of raspberries that I got for my daughter had been doing very well in their newly planted location. I guess they still are, except that something has started to eat them!! They will recover – so long as the munching does not continue.
We still have some 1″ wire mesh in the basement. It might be enough to put a barrier around each of these raspberries.
Interestingly, the old raspberry plants, on the other side of the garden, under the shade of a crab apple and chokecherry tree, show no sides of nibbling. They aren’t as healthy as the new plants, though, and are just barely managing to leaf out right now. In the fall, we should transplant them into a sunny location. For now, whatever critter ate the new raspberries seems uninterested in the old ones.
I also found this.
It looks like something walked right through a couple of our beds. I’ve seen tracks similar to this before, but those tracks were so small, it was likely a cat. These much larger tracks line up with each other across the two beds. There is nothing to show if they were made by hooves are large paws (like a dog or a coyote), but with the nibbled raspberries, it does seem more likely to have been a deer. Or we could be looking at two different animals. The angle of the tracks don’t go to or from the raspberries, but at an angle well aside from them.
*sigh*
Once inside, I checked the trail cam, and nothing at all triggered the camera facing the tulips. Aside from files with me checking the angles and adjusting it, there was one other file, and it got triggered by wind blown branches.
So I went back and moved the camera. It is now on the crab apple tree at the “corner” of where the tulips are. I tried a couple of different branches, so when I next check the files (which I will probably do later today, rather than wait until tomorrow), I can see if one works better than the other. The problem is, I think the camera is now too close. It may be covering just a small part of the tulip area, rather than the whole thing.
Meanwhile, as I was tightening the strap and adjusting the camera position, Creamsicle Jr. came by, walked up to a tulip plant that was still taller (having had just a flower chomped off, leaving the stalk and leaves), grabbed it with a paw, and started biting at the leaves!!! The little s***! Now, I don’t think the cats did the damage we’re finding, but it’s adding insult to injury for him to start chomping on the already damaged tulips!
The girls and I have been talking about what we can try to protect these. The problem is, there isn’t a lot available. I made a point of looking in garden centres, and have not been finding what I remember seeing just last year. I’ve seen some “deer fencing”, which is basically a stronger plastic mesh, but no netting. The closest I found were pop-up mesh covers for individual plants. Which would be fine if we were trying to protect just a couple of plants, but completely unusable – and insanely expensive – for our set up. In researching options. I’ve read that smaller birds can actually get tangled up in the bird netting, so I was looking for something finer. Unfortunately, there was nothing. I found that very odd, as this was something that used to be easy to find. In the end, we ordered a roll of mosquito netting, online, courtesy of my daughter. It’s a 10′ x 30′ roll, and we were going to try it over the beets, first. I think it would be fairly easy to set up on the hoops I put over the beet bed next to the carrots, and my daughters were thinking of using the T posts along the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden to support netting over the lettuces and beets planted there. If this works out, we’ll pick up more mosquito netting.
I also want to pick up more 1″ wire mesh, which is relatively cheap (at least I hope it’s still cheap!). I think that will work better for some of the beds. I’m thinking of getting some PVC pipe to use as hoops, too, though I’ve been looking for that for a couple of years now, and not finding the right size that will bend well. We might have to order that online. We’ll have to come up with something much cheaper to put around the corn and sunflower beds, though. I’ve read that deer don’t have good depth perception, so two low fences, a few feet apart, works as well as one tall fence. We might be able to get away with picking up more of that yellow rope and making a double “fence” around that far garden area. We can also tie flappy, spinny and shiny things to it, to keep the birds away, too.
I’ve been looking at ideas for protecting garden beds from insects, birds, etc. for some time, and in many ways, it has been very … perplexing. I suspect it has to do with the difference between countries. For example, I often see ways to make various structures by re-purposing “free” wood pallets. Where on earth are people getting free pallets? My daughters both worked at a major hardware store. Pallets were always returned to the company that supplied the product, to be used again. They did have “extra” pallets that customers could have – at a price, not for free. By the time pallets ended up at the back by the garbage bins, they were no longer usable. Not much left to salvage from those (we’ve grabbed some in the past and did what we could with them). No one just tosses out good pallets! At least, not that I have been able to find.
Then there are the PVC pipe projects. PVC is so cheap! You can make things for almost free!
Well, not really. I mean, PVC pipe is relatively inexpensive, compared to other things, but clearly our prices are much higher than whomever is writing articles about these projects I’ve found. Also, I’ve looked for the type of pipe used in the projects, and I’m not finding them. What I am finding is far too rigid to be used the way they are in the projects. Then there’s the electrical conduit. I’ve seen these used to make strong, lightweight frames for trellises. Again, I’m not finding them in local stores. The type I am finding is flexible, not rigid. I suppose we might find it in the city. Yes, I know; we could try ordering online and pick them up or something, but the few times I’ve tried that, what showed as available in a store on the website often turns out to not actually be in stock at the store. Plus, when buying something I’m not familiar with, I like to be able to actually see the product to make sure it will do, before I buy it. For my fellow yarn crafters, it’s like buying yarn online. It’s one thing to buy yarn you’re familiar with. Caron Simply Soft is Caron Simply Soft, wherever you get it, but when buying new type of yarn, it’s very much a touchy-feely thing. I recall a friend of mine who spent $200 on yarn intended for some charity projects, but when it came in, she found the texture to be so course and awful, she ended up spending another $200 on yarn at the store I was teaching at, at the time. For me, it makes no difference whether it’s yarn, or PVC pipe. I need to see and handle the product, first. I find ordering online to be a bit of a crap shoot for many things. Like when my daughter ordered a XXL hoodie, thinking it was be safe to order a much larger size than needed, only to get something labeled as XXL, but would barely have fit a child! Or the keyboard my husband bought for me that I ended up not being able to use.
By I digress, yet again!
We have to figure something out, to protect our garden beds from critters. We have so many, so spread out, however, it becomes difficult to find affordable, practical solutions! Particularly since so much of it is temporary. It will be much easier when we are ready to build our permanent accessible garden beds.
Until then, we do the best we can to reduce the carnage!
Today being Sunday, I normally avoid all unnecessary work. With the weather turning nice, it became a day to get back to hauling dirt, so we’ll have something to direct sow and transplant into, so that counts as necessary work! Tomorrow is supposed to get quite hot, so I wanted to get as much manual labour done today.
I had a couple of distractions.
One of them was the mock orange at the clothes line platform. I was starting to wonder if it had survived our deep freeze in February. We’ve been including it in the watering, and parts of it have started to leaf out, so I figured it would be a good time to prune it, now that I could actually see which parts were still alive.
I did accidentally snip one branch that had leaves, but otherwise, this is all of what got killed off this past winter.
A lot of little twigs and tips got snipped away, too. There’s not a lot left, but I know it will recover quite well. These are remarkably resilient plants!
It was also a nice enough day that the transplants could be set out to harden off again.
This is the first day of hardening off for all the Mongolian Giant sunflowers, and most of the Montana Morado corn. Some of the cups got left in the bin, as they either didn’t have anything sprouted in them, yet, or had only recent sprouts. I’ve been watering them in the bin from below, and I noticed many of the cups had roots coming through the drainage holes, so I put them in other cups to protect the roots while they were outside.
That done, it was time to start hauling soil.
I had company.
Nutmeg really wanted attention!
He and Ginger share many mannerisms. Ginger has a habit of hunching down and flopping a certain way that I just figured was because of the missing leg, but Nutmeg does it, too!
He’s such a cutie. :-)
This was the progress I made before I headed in. I couldn’t figure out why I was starting to feel kind of light headed, but then I realized I’d had only 4 pieces of toast for breakfast – and it was past 3pm!
You can see the corn block that had been done before the rains started, in the back. I’d finished a sunflower block, another corn block, and over half of a sunflower block, before heading in for some sustenance.
Not straight in, of course, because there’s always something to do first, right? :-D The seedlings went back into the sun room, and various garden beds got checked. It’s so nice to see so many seedlings, even if they are still really tiny!
After a couple of hours, I headed back outside. On my way to where I’d left the wheelbarrow by the garden soil, I paused to check on my daughter’s tulips. They have not opened, yet, but we can now see the colours of petals beginning to show in most of them.
Something didn’t seem right, though. In fact, something seemed very wrong.
Were there fewer flower buds?
Yes, indeed! Among the tulips closest to the edge, the flower stalks were cleanly snipped, and the flower buds missing.
It seems the deer were enjoying some appetizers!
I am not impressed. I didn’t expect them to squeeze between the plum and apple trees to get at these.
I left them for the time being, and continued working on the corn and sunflower blocks.
One of the down sides of setting up these beds in the area we intend to plant food trees later on, is that they are very close to the road, and today was a high traffic day. Thankfully, with all the rain we’ve had, I didn’t have the clouds of dust blowing in that we usually do. At least that won’t be as much of a problem for long, as the lilac hedge is leafing out quite nicely. It does a great job of stopping the dust cloud. One of the ATVs that passed by turned out to be our vandal, studiously and resolutely pretending not to see me. ;-) Which is fine. At least he’s stopped giving me the finger as he goes by.
During one of my trips back to the pile of soil, I saw him heading back, then could hear him slow down and finally stop on the road. I decided to see why, and found that he’d crossed paths with someone and they both stopped to talk on the road. So I continued with getting the load of soil, then heading back to the last of the corn blocks I was working on. I could hear the vehicles part ways, and our vandal’s ATV driving onto his property. As I was placing the soil, I could hear the ATV getting closer again, though clearly not on the road. Eventually, I heard it stop and the engine was shut off.
Then I started hearing gun shots.
By the 4th shot, I decided it was time to go inside. I have no idea what direction he was shooting in, but I wasn’t going to take chances with a stray bullet. It wasn’t a high powered rifle he was using; it was likely just a .22 I had only a row and a half left to do, but that can wait until tomorrow!
It was shortly after 8pm when I went inside, but I did head back out again about 10 minutes later. I dug out what was left of the yellow rope we found while cleaning up and tied it around some trees by the tulips.
It might be a bit too high, but I hope it will still discourage the deer from going under the bright yellow thing. We can hand dangly things off of it, to further discourage the deer.
As you can see by the spots of colour, there are still quite a few tulip buds. Thankfully, none of the Bull’s Eye tulips – the little ones in the foreground – were harmed. I counted the other ones, and all 54 bulbs have come up, but only half of the Bull’s Eye tulips (I found a fourth one had emerged, though it’s not visible in the above photo).
While I was doing this, I heard our vandal’s ATV start up again, so I headed over to where I might be able to see something. I did eventually see him off in the distance in his field. I can’t imagine what was out there that he would be shooting at. Normally, I would guess a skunk or some other potentially troublesome creature small enough that a .22 would be useful, but that would be an issue closer to his house or outbuildings, none of which we can see from our place. Out in the field like that, I might expect a bear, but if that were so, I would have expected to hear a higher caliber rifle!
Ah, well. Gun shots in the country are not all that unusual. The only reason it was a concern is because I had no way of knowing what direction he was firing, and I would not expect him to care where his bullets might end up, if he missed hit his target, whatever that may have been.
So that was it for my garden work today. Tomorrow, I’ll finish those last rows in the last corn block.
Oh, my goodness. I just checked the weather. The predicted high for tomorrow has been increased. We’re now expected to hit 27C/81F tomorrow afternoon! I’ll have to make sure I finish up much earlier in the day. The expected low tomorrow is 15C/59F. then temperatures are expected to drop right down again. We’ll have overnight lows just above, or at, freezing for three nights. After that, overnight lows are expected to range between 11C and 14C (52 – 57F) and stay in that range, well into June. Theoretically, that means we can start transplanting things outdoors by the 28th.
Which is what I did last year, when we got a frost on June 2. So while we will do the direct sowing we have left to do, the transplants will wait a bit longer!
Once I’m done with the corn and sunflower blocks, we will be done with all the areas that will be direct sown into. The next job is to work on the bed the winter squash, melons and gourds will go, since we will have to dig post holes for the squash tunnel we’ll be building to support them. Once that’s built, it’s back to hauling soil for the beds all the transplants will be going into.
I forgot to take a picture of the pile of soil. It is much depleted! I suspect we will be finishing it off and bringing soil in from the pile in the outer yard, by the time we’re doing the last of the beds.
The Re-Farmer 