The kitten seems to be completely normal right now! No favouring the leg that was dislocated. No limp that I can see. The kitten stays away on its own, for the most part, but doesn’t run away when the other kittens come over to say hi. I’ve even seen TTT grooming in on the way by.
I’m also not finding any messes. Not even on the puppy pads under my desk. It looks like TTT has finally starting using a litter box. Not while I’m in the room, though, so I’m hoping she’s using the covered box in my closet – the only one I can’t see into – and not in some secret corner somewhere. I’m not seeing any tiny messes, either, so it looks like the kitten figured out litter boxes right away.
The main thing is, the kitten appears completely uninjured! I was able to sneak a pet this morning, but otherwise it stays away. Now that it’s indoors, socializing it will be much easier, so I am not concerned.
Today is supposed to be “cooler”, with a high of 27C/81F. We currently have weather advisories for smoke. I can see it on the security camera live fee, hanging in the old hay yard like a fog. It is worse now, than when I was doing my morning rounds.
Our squash flowers are very popular.
They are pretty much the only things blooming right now, other than some wild yarrow, so the bees are happy!
I wasn’t expecting to harvest anything this morning, but I found these!
I was surprised to find such large patty pans. They got missed yesterday, hidden under leaves, but this morning I could actually see them. I normally like to pick them a bit smaller, but these will still be tender, without a seed cavity yet.
I was not intending to pick the pepper, though. I had moved it to look at the back and see how much green there still was, and the stem broke off!
Some of the beans growing in the compost ring are completely dried on the vines, so I picked one of the pods. Once inside, I opened it up and found…
A mystery.
When I first opened the pod, I thought they were black, but once I uploaded the photos to the computer, I could see they are actually a deep, dark blue.
I have no idea where they came from.
I have never bought seed beans like this, nor do I remember buying dry beans like this. If we did buy some that I can’t remember, they would have been cooked; no viable, uncooked seeds would have ended up in the compost heap.
I’ve tried looking them up, but have had no luck. These had pale purple flowers, green pods, and now deep blue, almost black, seeds. I’ve found seeds similar to this, but they all come from yellow or purple pods, none green.
Well, whatever they are, we’ve got more of them with pods drying out on the vines. I’ll keep the seeds and maybe try growing them in the garden next year, and seeing if they are actually a tasty bean.
I’m considering a couple of things in the garden beds right now.
One is going to have to be done; it’s just a matter of doing it when it’s cooler in the day. The Roma VF look like they’ve picked up a fungus. I don’t know if it’s tomato blight or something else. Either way, all the remaining tomatoes need to be picked and the plants pulled. They will be burned, not composted.
I’m debating the bed along the chain link fence. The peas are pulled, but there are still some of those Czech lettuces in there that I’m allowing to go to seed. Plus the volunteer tomatoes.
The tomato plants are really small, but if the long range weather forecast is at all accurate, they still have more than a month of growing season. So I am thinking of transplanting them into the empty bed in the old kitchen garden, where the Irish Cobbler potatoes had been. I would need to protect them from the kittens that like to play or nap in there.
Once that bed by the chain link fence is clear and ready to be prepped for the winter, I’m going to make it a bit narrower. It’s too painful to reach near the chain link fence to weed. Plus, some of those pieces of concrete patio blocks I found run under one corner of the bed, and I want to dig those out.
I have those tillage radish seeds still. I am thinking, once some beds are emptied and cleaned up, I can plant some of those as a cover crop. They won’t reach full size before winter, but they should drill far enough to make a difference. These are meant to be left in the ground, where they will freeze in the winter, decompose, and add organic matter to the soil in the spring.
Amending this soil into something healthy again is definitely a years-long process.
It was this wild combination of fog and bright sunshine. Just beautiful!
We were supposed to reach a low of around 11C/52F last night, but when I checked my phone at about 7am, one app was telling me it was 7C/45F. Another was saying we were at 10C/50F, but I think the 7C was the more accurate one.
With that sort of chill, I was not expecting to harvest anything this morning. Certainly, no tomatoes ripened overnight! Yet, I did find this!
There were quite a few larger Gold Ball turnips (they are being thinned by harvesting), and a single radish was ready to pick. In that bed, there are almost no beets coming up, and I’m not really seeing any spinach, either. I think the slugs got to them. But the radishes are coming up, at least. The others are still looking small, long and skinny. There was just this one that was ready to pick.
It was barely moving in the colder temperatures. It’ll be warmed by the sun, soon enough. According to my computer’s weather app (I really should get a thermometer for outside my window!), it’s 13C/55F, and we’re expecting a high of 21C/70F.
While checking the purple corn (which we are leaving to dry on the stalks, to collect seed), I could see the Red Swan beans we’d planted among the corn are getting bigger, with lots of flowers. I also finally spotted these!
These were planted late, specifically for their nitrogen fixing properties. I was not expecting to actually get a harvest from them, yet here they are! We should be able to start harvesting beans in a few days! I hope they taste good, because we ended up with a lot of these.
While checking on the old kitchen garden, one of the things I regularly do is look up into the lilac bush that the luffa is climbing, and try to see the little bitty luffa that are developing. There’s one that’s resting on a lilac twig, and it looks like it’s been damaged by the wind rubbing them together.
As I was trying to see among the leaves, I realized there was a much larger gourd developing, high up. I went around the other side of the wattle weave bed to try and see it better, only to discover this one.
It’s huge! Easily a foot long. It is completely hidden by greenery on the other side.
With a gourd this big, we might actually have a fully mature and tried out luffa to harvest by the end of the growing season! As long as the frost holds off.
As I was finishing up around the sun room before going inside, I saw a few of Octomom’s babies emerging from under the cat house. I also saw the black and white garage kitty, way off at the bowl under the grape vines. Nice to see that one coming to the house, finally!
I was in the sun room, just about to go inside, when another cat came up, wanting attention.
It was The Phantom! She’s back!!!
It took a bit of convincing, but when I opened the doors, she came into the house. I let her explore for a bit – and get sniffed at by other cats – when my daughter was able to pick her up and we put her in my bedroom.
The “isolation ward” is getting very crowded.
She’s settling in, though, and loving attention. As I write this, she is behind me on my office chair, keeping my butt warm!
The new kitten we brought in has no problem with her. They would remember each other. I think Decimus still recognized her, too. I’m not sure about Ghosty; they would have met before we brought Ghosty in, but she was so sick, and it was long ago enough that I’m sure she doesn’t remember Phantom anymore, even if her scent might still be familiar.
A couple of Decimus’ kittens were making themselves big, and Tin Whistle even hissed at her, but they now seem used to her and are ignoring her.
Snarly Marlee has been practically living on the window shelf. She is not happy with so many cats in the room.
I’ve no idea how TTT is; they would know each other, too, but TTT is in her favourite sleeping spot in my closet.
Speaking of TTT.
I am not happy with her.
I slept on the couch again last night. I had my mattress uncovered, with “Pet Fresh” carpet powder on the damp spots. I hoped it would be left alone, but when I came in this morning, there was a huge new pee spot, right in the middle of the mattress. There was also a “gift” next to the litter box under my desk, with a puppy pad all bunched up around it.
I ended up taking the box fan out of the window and found a way to set it up directly on my mattress. If nothing else, the breeze it’s creating is making most of my mattress an unpleasant place to be! There is one corner that’s got their bed blanket on it, and they’re not even using that, all that much. The kittens are playing around the fan, though, but they’re more interested in the cave it creates in my wall shelf behind it. A spot they are allowed to play in.
I chatted with the Cat Lady this morning, very happy to pass on the news about Phantom. I also told her about what TTT is doing. She told me that this is apparently common with cats that lose a front leg. They can’t dig in the litter, so they go just anywhere. We didn’t have that problem at all with Ginger. After he had his removed and came indoors, he used a litter box right away, even though he’d never seen one before. As for TTT, considering how much she digs at the puppy pads to bury her poop, clearly, that is not the issue with her.
Butterscotch, meanwhile, is happy the box fan it out of my window. She’s contentedly laying on the window ledge, looking outside. I expected it to be Nosencrantz, considering how much she’s been trying to get behind the fan, but Butterscotch is more Alpha that Nosencrantz. 😄 Nosencrantz is in her favourite spot in the shelf beside the window.
Well, I hope things work out over the next while. Just a little while longer. Then Decimus, the no-name outside kitten and Phantom will all get spayed, then taken to their new home.
Just tomatoes, almost all Romas, and a few patty pan squash, but it was still quite a haul.
The other good stuff is that the kitten I brought in yesterday did just fine, overnight. It was running around and playing with the other kittens when I came into my room this morning.
Which leads me to the not so good stuff.
I had to sleep on the couch last night.
I thought we had been doing well, but in the space of just a few minutes, my nice, clear, dry bed suddenly had a massive puddle in the middle. Not only was it large enough that I couldn’t even sleep on another part of the bed, even though it’s a king size, but it was in a spot that didn’t have any puppy pads under the sheets to protect the mattress.
The girls helped me juggle kittens and strip the bed, but as I soaked up as much as I could with more puppy pads, they were the ones that suggested I sleep on the couch. After getting it as dry as we could, we took off the mattress protector, too, and got everything in the laundry. We laid out more puppy pads, absorbent side down, then carefully covered them with a blanket to keep them in place. Then I left the room with the window fan going on maximum.
I did not get much sleep last night, though I have to admit, it was rather nice sleeping in the cat free zone. I was awakened early by cat arguments. Having had just a couple of hours of sleep, I got up long enough to feed all the cats, inside and out, before going back to bed on the couch.
While doing the feeding in my room, the bed was clear and nothing was destroyed, so I was very encouraged. So I went back to the couch and managed to get almost a couple more hours of sleep.
When I came back to my room, I found a “gift” on my bed. On the blanket, next to the towel I laid out under the kibble bowls while dividing up the wet cat food.
At least it was easy to clean up, but really??? There are so many litter boxes, but noooooo. Gotta use my bed!
Then I sat on the side of the bed to take my supplements, only to discover a wet spot with my butt. The colour and fuzziness of the blanket had hidden it. At least that was on top of a puppy pad!
I am getting so very frustrated.
I did get a chance to chat with the Cat Lady a bit, letting her know that the kitten did well inside. As long as the kitten is about 3 pounds, they will spay her, and I think she’s pretty close to that. With her being inside and getting regular wet and dry cat food, I don’t think it will be an issue by the time of the appointment.
No sign of Phantom this morning, though. We’re already discussing options, if she doesn’t show up in time. I’ll simply grab one of the friendly males. I wouldn’t be able to grab any of the other females. They’re not socialized enough.
Oh, just heard from the Cat Lady again. She says she will drop a trap off for us, tomorrow. If we can snag any of the moms with older kittens that would be good. Still, it would be ideal of Phantom comes back and we grab her.
In other cat related things…
This is the kitten we thought was female that turned out to be male.
What is it all the friendly ones are male? It was the same thing last year. The females are almost universally standoffish, while the males have been more easily socialized and love attention.
Then there are those that are just plain feral. Not semi-feral. Just feral. Like this one.
I spotted this one when I finally got out to do my morning rounds. Brussel’s kittens seem to have moved into the garage, more or less. This is the shier one, and the first time I’ve been able to get a good look at him/her. I had to move slow and zoom right in to get a picture, so it’s not a good image at all. What unique face markings!
I’ve seen its orange and white sibling closer to the house. I think I even saw it in the kibble house. This one, however, stays around the garage, and that’s it. I didn’t top up the food in the bowl I set up in the garage this morning, though. Hopefully, this one will get hungry enough to brave coming to the house. I also saw Octomom’s littles. Not all of them, but they seem to have taken up residence – at least for part of the day – under the cat house.
While doing my rounds this morning, I was pleased to find just one fallen branch. We had more rain and high winds last night, but it seems that weird climate bubble we have over us has protected us. The winds did knock quite a few crab apples off the trees, though. This morning, on one of my local gardening groups, several people mentioned their gardens were completely destroyed. One posted a photo of her crab apple tree, its apples knocked to the ground and lying next to hail almost as big as the apples! So far that I’ve seen, she was the only one that also reported damage to her home. Just a broken window, thankfully.
Today should be quite a bit more pleasant. I plan to be doing stuff indoors, though. Specifically, making tomato sauce. Lack of sleep is catching up to me, though, and I’m dropping off as I type this. I think I will try napping again. I think I can squeeze into the dry corner of my bed around the kittens. I’m afraid that if I try napping on the couch again, I’ll come back to more puddles or piles!
The tomato sauce can wait a couple of hours. I’m all out of energy drinks, and feel like I’m about to drop right on my keyboard!
In the first picture, the potatoes from the wattle weave bed are on the far left. I hadn’t planned on planting potatoes there, and had just shoved the last seed potatoes that didn’t fit in the other bed in there. This bed was different in that, when it was prepared in the fall, it was topped with a mulch of wood chips. I just dug holes for each seed potato through the mulch, leaving most of it undisturbed. Then, a straw much was added on top. To harvest them, I removed the straw mulch and dumped it on the other bed I’d just emptied, but the wood chip mulch got brushed aside. After harvesting all the potatoes I could find, the wood chips and soil got pushed back and levelled off, all mixed together. The wood chips had already started to compost pretty well since last fall, and should break down even faster, now that it’s mixed in with the soil and all the worms and insects I was finding!
The second picture is of all the really tiny potatoes I was finding, plus a few slug damaged ones. They actually look far bigger in the picture than they actually are!
For now, they’re just sitting in their little piles on rhubarb leaves. I’ll figure out what to do with them later!
The Purple Peruvian potatoes should be much easier to harvest. We just need to dump them out of their grow bags and onto a tarp or something. The first time we had potatoes in grow bags, we dumped them into the kiddie pool we had, but that’s got melons growing in it right now. 😄 It’ll be a while before we harvest those. They are only just barely starting to die back right now.
We already knew we liked the Purple Peruvians. So far, we’ve only had one meal with the Irish Cobbler and the Red Thumbs, and we enjoyed them, too. They were cooked together, though. We’ll try them each on their own next, and see how we like them. At this point, though, I’d say both varieties are ones we’d be willing to grow again. When we’re at a point that we can grow enough potatoes to last us the winter, we’ll have tried enough different varieties to decide on two or three to stick to and save our own seed potatoes from.
I didn’t get back to the trench with anything to cut the roots, yet. I wanted to wash away as much of the soil as I could. First, to uncover the roots to better see them, but also to get a better look at the pipe itself.
I just don’t know what to make of this!
There are sections of the wider pipe, all along the main pipe (I agree with 53old; it looks like irrigation pipe). Once I get the roots cut away, I will take off one of the couplings I put on in my attempt to repair the pipe, and I should be able to take this length of the pipe out, all the way to the tap. Then I’ll be able to take a good look at what is under those wider sections of pipe.
The only thing is, I have yet to find the end of the pipe. I’ve been digging around at the bottom of the tap but keep hitting roots and rocks, and that end of the pipe is quite a bit lower than the rest of it. My brother will be here tomorrow morning, and I hope he’ll have time to see this!
I also managed to get the bed the garlic was harvested from almost completely ready for planting.
The first photo in the series is the “before” picture.
After clearing away the grass clipping mulch, you can see that there is a fair bit of weeding to do, mostly along the edge. That crab grass comes up from under the log border. I broke up the entire bed to weed it, and was finding plenty of rhizomes making their way into the middle! Then I added a bag of manure to work into the soil.
Because the edges are where the most trouble is for weeds, once the manure was worked in, I raked the soil away from the log edges and into the middle. Then I took some of the grass clipping mulch and packed a thick layer tight against the logs. They won’t be enough to choke out the weeds, but they will at least make it harder for them to get through. Plus, it’ll make sure we don’t accidentally plant too close to the edge.
Last of all, I raked the soil back towards the grass clippings and leveled it off a bit. There are a lot of hard clumps, though, so I’ll have to come back to it with the cultivator tool and break those up. Once that is done, it’ll be ready for planting.
What we’ll most likely do is plant in three blocks, square food gardening style, with the beets in the middle. The radishes are a fast crop, so having them near an end makes sense. The spinach is a cut and come again crop, so having them near and end also makes sense. While the beet greens can be eaten, we’ve don’t tend to eat them a lot, their roots will take the longest to reach a harvestable size. We will likely harvest them all at once at the end of the year, so they can stay in the harder to reach middle zone.
Once these beds get converted to high raised beds, reach won’t be as much of a problem. The lower the bed, the harder it is to reach the middle of it. If you’re short like me and thinking of growing in low raised beds, I would recommend not going more than 3 feet wide for that reason. Ours are 4 feet wide, which is great for a high bed, but gets pretty painful on a low one! Even the box beds, two of which are about a foot high, it’s still uncomfortable to reach into the middle and actually do anything of substance.
That’s where we’re at now! Once the bed prep is finished, we just have to choose which varieties we will be planting. 😊
The first unexpected thing of the morning was being awakened by my husband, asking what the current status was for feeding the indoor cats.
With Leyendecker getting his meds morning and evening for 10 days (the next 10 days will be evening only), and having to control what he eats, the girls have been putting food out for all the cats at the same time.
It wasn’t done at the usual time this morning.
Which means Leyendecker’s meds weren’t done, either. I slept right through it.
Why did I sleep right though it? I have reminders set to go off on my phone.
The next unexpected thing was not being able to move. I had a Question asleep on my neck, and several other kittens sleeping on various parts of my body.
I was eventually able to reach my phone, unplug it and check it.
It was off.
I did not turn it off. I have my phone playing soothing music or whatever, to help me fall asleep. It was active when I fell asleep.
I turned the power on, the start up routine began and…
Nothing.
My phone was a brick.
After prying off the rest of the kittens, I was eventually able to find that the charger itself had been unplugged at the power bar. Because of the cats, I actually have the power bar hanging from under my craft table. Somehow, the kittens rough and tumbled enough to yank it right out.
So I did my morning rounds with no phone, which means no pictures!
I’ll just share this picture from last night with you, instead.
Retired Grandma has finally accepted the kittens. I now regularly find her asleep on my bed, with at least Question or Ghosty snuggled up. This is the first time I saw her with 5 out of 6 kittens!
After extricating myself from the kittens again, I was able to give Leyendecker his meds and feed the indoor cats. We’re still not seeing Leyendecker eating. I don’t know what to make of it. He’s certainly drinking plenty, and we are still catching him trying to spray around the house, so he’s not blocked. When he’s getting meds once a day instead of twice, we’ll see if his appetite picks up.
I have yet to see the girls this morning. They both pulled all-nighters, I think. My older daughter was working, of course, but in between working on commissions, she came down to help her sister. My younger daughter was doing some baking during the night, because it’s too hot to bake during the day. One of the things they’ve been working on is the living room. Being a cat free zone now, we’ve been putting way too many things in there to get them away from the cats. We need to organize it and move things around because… !!!
My brother is coming out tomorrow morning with an air conditioner for us!!!
We have not seen it yet, but it’s one of those portable ones that would normally be set up in a window. We have no windows it can be set up in. It also needs a 3 prong outlet, and we don’t have a lot of those in the house.
So what my brother will be doing is making a hole in the wall under the big picture window in the living room to install a vent for the AC hose. To make space for the AC set up, the girls plan to rearrange the living room. It’s as good an excuse as any to finally get to reorganizing the room, and taking out stuff that shouldn’t be in there in the first place!
As I will likely be in the city for our Costco shop, my brother plans to come out quite early in the morning, so we can get it done before I leave.
My brother is a morning person.
I am not.
Anyhow. That’s now arranged, and having that AC is going to make live much more comfortable in the house!
So that will be done tomorrow.
After taking care of Leyencker’s meds, I headed outside to do my morning rounds. My husband had already put food out for the yard cats, which was much appreciated. There are a couple of kittens that allow me to clean their eyes, so I check for them right away. One white and grey one was looking much better this morning, which was a relief. I’d done its eyes last night, because one was stuck completely shut. as soon as I cleaned it to the point that the lids become unstuck, goo absolutely poured out, completely covering the damp paper towel I was using to clean it. It took me three sheets of towel to get its eyes and face cleaned up. Its nose is also really sticky and last night it was so bad, there was even kibble stuck to its face! Thankfully, it did not need any eye washing or nose clearing at all, this morning.
In checking the garden beds, I took extra care to check the Black Beauty tomatoes. Last night, I found several branches bent over from the weight of the tomatoes, in spite of their supports. I was finding and tying supports to those, even adding another bamboo stake at the end of the bed, when the girls came out for an evening walk. They helped me add more support lines to the melon bed trellis, as those are getting long enough to need training up the trellis.
This morning, the bent tomato branches I tied off are looking good – no wilting to show they were badly damaged. The melon vines were holding out on the trellis, too.
In checking the bush beans, I was able to actually harvest a handful of both green and yellow beans! They are recovering quite nicely from being eaten. I expect to have plenty more to harvest, soon.
Oh, speaking of unexpected things; I was looking over the squash growing in our compost ring, and a couple of new female flowers were blooming, so I hand pollinated them, just in case. On one vine, the developing squash look pretty usual; just round, green balls, as I would expect from a pumpkin. Another vine, however, is clearly some sort of hybrid. The developing squash are more elongated, but had flat parts on the surface. Completely unlike anything we’ve grown before.
It should be interesting to see what we get out of those!
There is also a developing Caveman’s Club gourd on the chain link fence trellis that’s looking pretty good!
In the main garden, the G-Star patty pan squash have exploded in huge flowers – but only one female! Previously, it was female flowers blooming, but no males. Checking the other squash, I have been finding developing fruit that point to successful pollination. There is still just the one Honeyboat Delicata that I hand pollinated, though that variety has the most transplants of them all. I was checking the label on another and saw we have some Red Kuri/Little Gem squash developing. It’s a good thing I label these, because I forgot we had any of those germinate at all. I’m also seeing some Candy Roasters and Winter Sweets developing. There are even some summer squash starting to show up. We have no surviving Madga squash at all, but there is one each of the yellow pattypan, yellow zucchini and green zucchini, and all of them are showing both male and female flowers.
The African Drum gourds seem to be doing well. I was able to hand pollinate another female flower this morning. Still no female Zucca melon flowers, though.
I spotted a hidden female flower among the Crespo squash, too, but I’m really wondering about those. The plants look completely different from the first years we grew those.
We’ll find out, eventually! Praying for a long mild fall, so give all these time to fully mature on the vine!
While it was still cool, I started working on that water pipe to the garden tap. I moved off the rocks around the tap base, then started digging a trench. I’ll have to go back later with the loppers, as there are so many roots to cut away from over and around the pipe.
What I found so far is even more of a mystery. I will be sure to take photos to show what I mean, now that my phone is no longer a dead brick. I wish I knew what was going on when this pipe was laid, because I’m just even more confused than ever. Perhaps when my brother comes out tomorrow, he’ll be able to look at it and remember something.
Now, the easy thing would be for us to simply run a hose from the house tap to the garden tap on the surface, then put the hose away for the winter. But I really like the original, more permanent set up. Once we get this old hose cleared out, I want to have another buried line, but I want to learn from what we’ve got going right now. I plant to lay down pipe large enough to accommodate a garden hose. The pipe comes in sections, so if for some reason there is damage, only a section would need to be dug up and replaced, not the whole thing. I also plan to drill drainage holes, in case the hose somehow gets damaged, or in case water gets in some other way. We can buy pipe with drainage holes, but the extra cost for something I can do myself isn’t worth it. They won’t even need that many drainage holes. At each end of the pipe, I want to have 45° fittings. At the garden end, I plan for the end to go into the support pillar the tap and pipe will be fitted into. At the house end, the opening will be closed/filled around the hose end to prevent dirt, water or critters from getting in, but something easily removed.
As for the hose itself, having it run through the pipe will make it easy to remove for repair or replacement. The support pillar box I plan to build for the garden tap end will have an access door that opens on one side (unless I go with a different design; it’s still flexible). There will be room enough to store things, including a length of cord that can be tied to the hose end. If the hose needs to be repaired or replaced, the hose, with the cord attached, can be pulled out at the house end, get taken care of, then the cord can be used to pull the repaired or replaced hose back through the pipe to the garden tap. If we wanted to, we could even remove the hose for the winter, though it shouldn’t be required.
Done right, this should last at least another 50 or more years, and allow for easy access for repair or maintenance, and not have a hose or pipe on the surface to have to work around.
Well, I sure got distracted! Here, I was supposed to be just writing about my morning. LOL
Aside from digging up more trench this morning, I also harvested the garlic. They are currently outside in the sun to dry a bit, then I will tie them off to hang in the old market tent to cure. Maybe. The humidity levels may be too high for that. I might have to find somewhere else to hang them to cure. We’ll see how the weather turns out.
We have quite a few soft neck garlic, but they are not very large. I probably should have left them longer, but so many have been broken flat by cats lying on them, I just went ahead and pulled them all. The hard neck garlic from saved cloves – the Porcelain Music – are the biggest we’ve ever grown! One is just huge. I can’t remember the other variety that we bought along with the soft neck garlic, but they are also quite large.
Once the bed is clear, I will do the fall planting I intended to do where the peas are. The peas have started blooming again! So I will just leave them. After talking with my daughters, we will do a fall planting of spinach, a few radish (turns out my younger daughter likes radish!) and some beets. All of these should grow fast enough that we’ll have something to harvest before first frost.
But first, I need to organize my garden supplies in the living room, move things out and make some space, so my daughters can rearrange the furniture.
Well, I did get some sleep last night! The kittens did tackle me, but I almost slept through it. I really, really have to watch myself, though. I leaned forward in bed this morning, and something moved. Turned out I had a kitten curled up right against my belly!
My daughter, unfortunately, did not get any sleep at all last night. Big Rig would not leave her alone! So she was up and about early to find Leyendecker for his morning medications. As I was getting up to help her, I realized I was hearing pouring rain over the sound of my fan! We were not supposed to get rain today. That’s why I watered the garden yesterday!
My daughter went on to feed the outside cats while I supervised Leyendecker, trying to get him to eat his new food. The first time my daughter gave it to him, he ate it hungrily. Now, he won’t eat it at all. We’re not sure what’s going on. Even when he’s around the main food bowls, which we now keep empty between feedings, he hasn’t even really been looking for more food. It’s likely the medications are causing him to loose his appetite, but I don’t remember it happening when he was on them before.
Since it was pouring so hard out, I went back to bed. My sense of time is now completely messed up! I went out to do my “morning” rounds a little while ago, but it was about 3pm. It still feels like morning.
Anyhow, here are some of my finds of the day!
When I saw Octomom heading for the kibble house, I checked on her babies. Usually, they’re asleep when she leaves, but not today!
It took me watching this a couple of times, counting and recounting, before I finally spotted the eighth kitten, under the two black ones! 😄
While finishing my rounds, I spotted the kittens in the junk pile with their mama.
Looks like it’s just the 2 of them, and they’re starting to go further afield! I expect we’ll soon be seeing them eating in the bowl under the shrine. 😊
I managed to get a picture of the tuxedo with the messed up eye. This photo is cropped closer, to see it better.
I’m really surprised. That eye is clearing up really well! The inner eyelid is swollen like crazy, but I was sure he was going to lose that eye completely. I am happy to say, it looks like I was wrong!
Meanwhile, I had a first in the (very well watered!) garden today!
Our very first ripe Roma tomato! It picked itself. This was the first tomato to show up, so no surprise it ripened first. I reached out to touch it and it fell off the vine into my hand!
The next picture is of ripening Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes. Now I can see where the “chocolate” part of the name came from!
I didn’t get a picture, but I saw a female Crespo squash in full flower, and I made sure to hand pollinate it. In the photos above, you can see the female African Drum gourd flowers are getting larger. The male flowers have been blooming consistently, so I expect to be able to pollinate those by hand when they finally open.
The last picture is of the G-Star patty pans, and we’ve got a switch on that one! The female flowers are blooming, but the male flowers just buds right now. Which means those lovely looking squash are not going to develop fully. There aren’t even any other summer squash blossoms I could use to pollinate with. I suppose I could try using a winter squash blossom, but I don’t know if they are similar enough for that to work. The G-Star plants are doing very well, though, so I expect we’ll have both male and female flowers blossoming at the same time, fairly soon.
I’m thinking it might be time to harvest the garlic. I want to give the bulbs time to get nice and big – we have so few of them this year – but the stems are drying out, which means they probably won’t get much bigger than they are now. That will free up an entire bed for something else, if we harvest those soon.
In the wattle weave bed, I transplanted 4 different early peppers, just in case we didn’t get a chance to transplant more in the grow bags. When watering last night, it looked like one of them has suddenly died. I could not find a reason why, but it’s wilting away. Nothing else around it is affected. There is no insect damage that I can find. It even looks strong around the stem and roots. I hope it perks up, but I don’t think it will. Everything else in that bed is doing well. Even the chamomile is starting to bloom. That first luffa we planted in there is getting so big, it has started to climb the lilac above it, and clusters of flower buds are starting to appear.
My sense of time is not just messed up about today, where I feel like it’s so much earlier in the day. I also get that sense, in reverse, when tending the garden. “Spring” arrived so early this year, it feels like we’re heading into fall, when we’ve still got half the summer to go. I keep thinking I should be harvesting things from the garden regularly by now. I’ve looked back at photos I took in July over the last two years to get some comparison, and we weren’t harvesting much at all at this time. When we grew melons successfully, 2 years ago, we had baseball sized fruits developing at this time. This year’s melons germinated so late, they’re just starting to bloom right now, and just male flowers so far. Some of the corn was behind what we have now, while others ahead. No surprise the summer squash was ahead compared to this year, since this year we have barely any and did direct sowing instead of transplants. I’m glad I took so many photos. It helps me get a sense of what to expect now, more or less, based on how things did in past years. Taking into account that 2 years ago was a drought year with heat waves (which the melons loved!) and last year a lot of things were lost to flooding in the spring.
I guess I feel better after looking at the photos from previous years. Some things, I can’t quite figure out why there is a significant different between them and this year. Others, it’s pretty obvious!
At least we’re not having to deal with groundhogs eating everything again! They seem to have moved on and are staying away, and I’m quite happy with that!
Now we just have to worry about racoons! Especially when it comes to the corn.
I phoned the vet clinic today and asked about the kitten we brought over last week because of it’s messed up eye, that promptly got adopted. He is doing fine! His eye was removed just a couple of days ago. While talking to the receptionist, she told me her daughter was playing with, as we were speaking.
That was really wonderful to hear!
I wonder if he will end up becoming a clinic cat? They had one before they moved to the new location, but I haven’t seen it since the move.
Next the concerning news.
I phoned the vet clinic today.
For the past while, we’ve been having issues with cats spraying around the house, but lately there have been massive problems with finding huge puddles of pee all over the place. Some regular spots included in front of the fridge, in front of the washing machine, in front of the main door, in front of the toilet, and under my older daughter’s bed.
It turns out to be Leyendecker. He’s not just spraying anymore. He seems to be losing bladder control, and he’s not happy about it!
We have an appointment for him on Saturday.
The last time he was there, it was because he was blocked and couldn’t pee at all. Now, he can’t stop peeing!
Poor bugger.
On a completely different note…
While going through the gardens beds this morning, I was thinking it’s time to pull the peas.
They’re about done their season, but mostly it’s because their tops are gone, and so are most of the developing pods. They never got very tall, but are now even shorter. My guess is a deer has simply been walking along the chain link fence, munching away. On both sides! There are still some pods developing, but I’ve been harvesting maybe 3 of 4 pods, at most, in the mornings and just snacking on them while I do my rounds.
When it comes to pulling the plants, though, they won’t actually be pulled, but cut. Peas are nitrogen fixers, but to take advantage of that while planting something else, it turns out the roots should be left in the ground.
One more reason I’m happy to have discovered the Gardening in Canada channel! I did not know that until recently.
Once those are clear, however, that leaves a long bed with room for something else.
In the second half of July.
We only have about 50 days before first frost.
Maybe. For the past couple of years, we didn’t get a first frost until much, much later. Based on those years, we may actually have another 4-4 1/2 months of growing season left.
Or we can get frost in July or August. It happens. That’s the problem when working with averages. The real world doesn’t know what those are! 😄
There are actually quite a few options available.
Among the usual recommendations are some we just won’t bother with. Arugula, for example, is something we just don’t eat, so we don’t even have the seeds. Radishes are another one, and we do have seeds, but they are something I want to grow for the pods to try, so they need a full season. None of us are actually keen on eating radish bulbs.
Among the greens we could plant, and have seeds for, spinach is something we enjoy. We haven’t done well with lettuces, as I found they got bitter even before they bolted. We also still have Swiss Chard seeds if we want a different green.
Bok Choy is a recommended crop, but the only seeds I had were the tiny ones that got smothered by the Chinese elm seeds. The few surviving ones are going to seed and pods are developing, so I’m hoping to save seed and try them again next year. Somewhere else!
Some varieties of carrots can be started now, as they handle frost well and can be left in the soil in the winter, if covered well enough. We already have 2 types of carrots, and I don’t want to start more now.
Summer squash is supposed to be something that can still be sown now, since they get harvested while small. I’ve already reseeded summer squash three times with poor success, so that’s out. They would be too big for the space, anyhow.
It’s the same issue with planting bush beans. We could use more beans, but we’ve got the onions planted where the Czech lettuce and tiny bok choy were choked out. Bush beans would cover them completely.
We could try more turnips and/or beets. The beets we planted earlier are really struggling. Perhaps they would do better in this bed. The Gold Ball turnips are growing, but I do have some leftover seed from varieties we tried last year, too.
We could actually plant the Dalvay peas again. We certainly have enough seeds, but I’m not interested in feeding the deer even more, as much as I would love to have a real pea crop to harvest!
Hhhmm. I think it will come down to either beets or spinach. Considering the length of the bed, and how the chain link fence posts conveniently divide it into three equal sections, we could do smaller rows of three different things, and still get decent potential quantities.
Whatever we decide on, we’ll be making sure to work in the early morning hours over the next week or more. We’re looking at temperatures at, or over, 30C/86F to deal with, and the hottest part of the day it typically around 4 or 5pm, and it stays hot until 8 or 9pm. As I write this, it’s almost 6:30pm, and we’ve been at our high of 27C/81F for a couple of hours already. It’s not going to drop to comfortable temperatures until almost midnight. Looking at the long range forecast, we’ll be getting temperatures just below 30C/86F for the rest of the month.
Which makes it weird to think about what cool weather/frost hardy crops we can plant right now!
They’re still on the bottom of that old and rotting barrel. As I write this, it’s raining, and I’m afraid rain is getting through the opening the mama is jumping in and out of, and they’re right under it. Where the barrel is is very sheltered, though, so not a lot of rain is reaching the barrel to begin with.
I hope!
I’ve cleared out a corner of the sun room, then used boxes and cat blankets to create a nest, with other stuff placed around it to make it even more cave-like. What I’m hoping to do is get the kittens out of the barrel and move them to the nest. Hopefully, the mama will accept the offering and leave them there. We can even put other things around it to make it more private, so she won’t be disturbed as we go in and out of the sun room.
But that is a job I can’t do without someone more spry and agile to get at the kittens. We can reach to move the boards out and then maybe tip the barrel over, very carefully. It might just fall completely apart once we start moving it.
Is it worth trying? What do you think?
Anyhow…
This morning, the girls were out before I was and took care of feeding the outside cats, then put together two more frames for the raised beds for me. The third one wasn’t done because somehow we missed drilling pilot holes at one end of the 3′ pieces, and they didn’t want to be making noise with the drill while my husband and I were trying to sleep!
I headed out early to go to my mothers, stopping for the mail, then pick up lunch. I went to the Chinese restaurant right next to her place and got myself a full meal, but just onion rings for her. Now that she’s been convinced they are using cat meat and refuses to even consider she might be wrong on that, onion rings are the only thing she’s willing to eat from there! Her loss. The food was delicious, as always.
Before we left, my mother said she had a letter to mail, but she didn’t want to mail it at the local post office. As we were going to get her new glasses, she started talking about the $45 she put in an envelope to pay, but wasn’t sure what she had paid for. I explained to her (again) that it was for her eye test, because it wasn’t completely covered by our province’s Medicare. She said something about the cost of her glasses, as she had written a check for half the cost and I said no, it was just for her eye test, not at all for her glasses. She then commented on not having any receipts, and I reminded her she got two receipts; one for the glasses, one for the eye tests. I had folded up the receipts and put them in the envelope she’d had the cash for the test in. I’d even made sure to show them to her once at home, them back, telling her to put them with her other tax receipts.
She didn’t remember that, and doesn’t know where that envelop is, anymore, but also had no interest in looking. Hhmm.
So, off we went to the town her glasses were in, which is about half way to the city from where she lives. Along with going to the post office, she talked about wanting to go to a grocery store, too. Once at the eye place, my mother got excellent care as they made sure everything was just right.
Then she started asking about the $45, and what was that for?
*sigh*
I’m not sure why my mother didn’t believe me, or what she thought that cash paid for. The lady patiently explained exactly what it was for; it turns out there is just one specific test she had that is not covered. Honestly, I’m still not sure she accepted the explanation.
She was happy with the glasses, though. After getting them to fit just right, she was told to start wearing them tomorrow, when she first gets up, rather than try and get used to a new prescription part way through the day. Since she already uses a walker, there’s a higher risk of falling if she gets dizzy or has depth perception issues.
When it was time to pay, the lady wrote the check out for my mother to sign, and my mother started talking as if they weren’t going to give her a receipt, but she would like one. She was assured they would give her a receipt. Then we made sure she saw the printout, and that it went into the bag with her glasses.
While we were chatting, my mother asked where the post office was, as she couldn’t remember. We got excellent directions. Once we were done, though, she wanted to go to the grocery store, first, since it was so close. As we parked, we saw a Canada Post sign on a pharmacy that shared the parking lot, so we tried going there first. Turns out they just had a postal box, and my mother refuses to use postal boxes anymore. The one outside the post office in her town was stolen, several years ago, so now she things if she puts mail in a post box, it will get stolen.
I didn’t mind stopping at the post office, though, because I was out of antihistamines, and I’m allergic to something out there!
Then it was time to go to the grocery store, but suddenly my mother didn’t actually want to buy anything there, though she did look through the bakery section. Their bakery section is one of the things she looks forward to in that store, as they carry types of bread she can’t get locally. In the end, I did some of my own shopping while she rested in her walker, but as I quickly went around for things on my list, I found her checking out the meat department! 😄 So she did get one thing – just not the thing she came to the store for! I paid for it with my own stuff, so she wouldn’t have to stand in line.
Next, it was off to the post office. She remembered what the building looked like, but the post office hasn’t been in that building for many years. I don’t know what the building is now, but it’s unique enough that it frequently gets used in movies. There have been a few times I’ve come to this town in the summer, and had to drive around blocks closed off and decorated with fake snow and Christmas trees, because another Hallmark movie was being filmed. Even explaining this as we drove past the original building, when we next drove by the old town hall, with similar architecture, she was telling me that was the post office!
I’m glad we got such excellent instructions, because the real post office turned out to be hidden in a strip mall breezeway! So well hidden, after I parked the car, I walked over to see, and discovered the doors where hidden by post boxes. 😄
When I went back for the envelope my mother wanted to mail, I got very specific instructions. My mother has sent mail to Poland (months ago, though she makes it sound like yesterday) that didn’t arrive. When mailing another letter to Poland, the lady behind the counter thought it was to Ukraine, apparently. I honestly don’t see how that could be, but that’s what my mother tells me. She also writes “Polska” on the address, rather than the English “Poland”, and the lady asked what that was.
So now my mother is convinced that the lady at the local post office just throws away her letters. Or that they are being stolen. Or that no one at the post office understand that Polska means Poland.
My instructions were to make sure they knew this was going to Poland, and whether she should write Poland in English rather than Polish.
When I got to the counter, I explained my questions. The lady at the counter even double checked to make sure if having Polska on there was fine, and was assured it was. In the end, I think the questions I made on behalf of my mother made her day!
My mother didn’t even need postage. All that, because she refuses to drop a letter into a postal box!
She was happy with the responses I got, though. But now I’m wondering, what is she going to do the next time she has to mail a letter to Poland?
That was the last of her errands, though, so we made the drive home. I didn’t even get guilted about staying longer after I helped her in. The folks from the seniors centre had some sort of coffe night in the lobby, and it was still going. My mother was happy to kick me out and be able to catch the end of it. 😂
Which is was fine by me – I didn’t have any insulated bags in the car, so I needed to get my few groceries home! I did stop at the hardware store first, though. I wanted to look for the coupling I needed to repair the pipe to the garden tap.
Turns out, the smallest size they had was for a 1 1/4″ pipe. The pipe I need to repair is 1″.
*sigh*
I was really hoping to avoid ordering it online.
Ah, well. Once I got home, I did exactly that. It comes in a 2 pack, so we’ll even have a spare.
That done, I headed outside. After setting up the kitten nest in the sun room, I did a bit of garden tending, then dragged the roll of fence wire over to where the frames were.
I had thought the wire was 4″ squares, but I was wrong. Once I started unrolling it, I could see it was several sizes. All the squares are 6″ long, but there are rows of 5″, 4″ and 3″ spaces.
The roll itself is just over 3″ wide. I decided for the first frame, I would try 5′ long pieces. Three of them will fit along the inside of the frame, with a bit of overlap. Bolt cutters made cutting the wire an easy thing, and I used pliers to bend the cut ends back. Being rolled up for so long, the pieces all have a curve we can take advantage of when attaching them to the sides of the frame.
I didn’t get that far, though. It started to rain while I was working on the last section, so I just put things away to finish tomorrow. Once I see how it looks with 5′ of fence wire, I’ll decide if the next one will get longer or shorter pieces.
For these ones, I plan to cover the fence wire with the black netting we used to protect beds last year, making sure to close up the ends in the process. The cats like to go into the garden beds and just lay on top of my vegetables, so this will at least keep them out! In the future, we’ll have to make a cover sized for the bed the Irish Cobbler potatoes are in right now. I never thought those would need covering! The other potatoes are fine, but the critters seem to really like that one bed! I keep finding kittens in there, but something bigger has been flattening the potato plants. So far, they have been able to recover okay, but there’s only so much abuse they can take! It’s too late to do anything about it this year, but we’ll have to keep that in mind when using the bed next year.
Funny how every year of gardening, I spend much of my time thinking about the next year’s garden! Everything we learn this year will make for a better garden next year.
I found a cardboard carton large enough for the mama to fit comfortably in and lined it with one of the blankets the Cat Lady donated to us for the kitties. Unfortunately, I really spooked the mom when I opened the door; enough that she ran out the hole in the back of the shed she’d been using to get in and out. I suppose that made it easier, since I didn’t have to worry about her reactions. I quickly put the baby in the bed box outside the shed, cleared the netting and other odds and sots where the baby had been lying, fit the bed box in, and left. The whole thing probably took less than a minute to do.
Picking up that tiny baby, though. Wow! It must have been maybe hours old, the first time I spotted them a few days ago.
The mother is Baby Beep Beep, which means she is NOT the mother of any of the sun room kittens.
In other things, we got quite a lot of rain last night. I’d used the rain barrel to water the front garden beds, as it was full to the top, and got it down to maybe a quarter or a bit less. This morning, it was full to the top. Not overflowing, but close, so I put the diverter on for now. We’re expecting more little thunderstorms passing through tomorrow. This morning, I was hearing thunder around us, and even got rained on a bit.
The potted herbs on the front step seem to be doing well. The lemongrass is getting taller. The spearmint in one pot by itself, and the thyme and oregano in the other, seem to be recovering from being transplanted well. Those two post have drainage holes and are sitting on trays, but the pot the lemon grass is in does not have any drainage holes. As I was weeding, I could see it was way too wet, so I just got a hammer and a nail and made one drainage hole.
I got this picture after it had been draining for more than half a minute, and there was still lots of pressure!
The bottom and sides of the pot are lined with grass clippings, and I don’t really mind there being some water accumulated in the clippings. Having a drainage hole higher up will work well, I think. It’s not like I could tip the pot and put holes in the bottom!
The down side is that, after weeding the Chinese elms that were sprouting in that pot, my hands smell like stagnant water. Yes, I’ve washed them. Several times. The smell still lingers. Ick.
I moved the last of the Jiffy Pellet trays to the steps near these pots. There is still that one Lemon Cucumber that sprouted, nothing else. It’s probably too late in the season, but when it gets its true leaves, I’ll find somewhere to transplant it. One cucumber plant is better than none.
This has been a very frustrating gardening year. The intension had been to expand the garden again, or at least use as much as what we did last year. With the weather and the heat, we weren’t able to build those trellis beds in time, which means two large sections, where we’d planted potatoes and melons last year, aren’t being used at all. We got transplants in, but didn’t have room for all of them, which means we have far fewer paste tomatoes than I intended. That was the one type I wanted to have a lot more of, since making our own tomato paste last year went over so well. Along with the weather and heat issues, I’ve lost more than a few days that would have been good days to work outside, because I had to help my mother out, and she demands I take a “holiday” when I’m with her, and not be “in a hurry” to leave. When I point out I have work to do, she just says, “what work? You don’t have cows!”
*sigh*
We didn’t do anywhere near as much direct sowing as intended, because there weren’t enough prepared beds to sow into. As it is, we had to use the old kitchen garden differently then intended, just to get things in the ground. That’s okay. Normally, I’m quite flexible about such things, but after a while, it just gets frustrating. In the end, instead of expanding the garden this year, we’ve got a smaller garden then last year. One positive thing, at least, is that we aren’t having the no good, terrible growing year we had last year!
I was feeling good about the garden in many ways. We have tomatoes growing and starting to produce fruit. The Gold Ball turnips, which disappeared last year, are growing well. Yes, something is eating the leaves, but not enough to hinder their growth. We’ve got two types of carrots, and both are doing well. The bush beans are struggling a bit, but they’re growing. Even the tiniest of onion transplants – the ones so small, they probably shouldn’t have been transplanted at all – are picking up. I’m happy to see so many pea pods forming, even though the plants themselves seem a lot shorter than I expected them to get. I think it’s the squash patch that is most encouraging. They failed so badly last year, and now I’m seeing the winter squash getting big and strong. It even looks like we’ve won the battle against the slugs! I’ll just have to keep up with sprinkling that corn meal. We might actually have fully mature winter squash to harvest this year
The melons germinated so late, they probably won’t get a chance to produce fully mature fruit, but they are recovering from being transplanted nicely and, you never know; we might get a long, mild fall and the frosts will hold off until late in the year again.
Then I see people sharing pictures on the local and Zone 3 gardening groups I’m on, showing their huge plants and talking about the vegetables they’re already harvesting. How can they be harvesting beans already? How is their corn so tall? One person was even eating fresh tomatoes! In June!
I try to remind myself that Zone 3 is about winter temperatures, and covers a large, geographically diverse area, so a lot of these people have a last frost date in the middle of May. Even with local groups, most of the members live well south of us. With this year’s very early and warm spring, even people with later frost dates took a chance and planted earlier. We’ve also had a decent amount of rain, though some people did lose or partially lose their gardens to driving rain, winds or hail.
Still, seeing all those photos of huge, lush garden growth and harvests, suddenly my garden seems really pathetic, and way behind, without even taking into account the things we didn’t get built in time to use this year.
I know better than to compare our situation to others, because it’s so different, but when I’m already feeling so far behind, it’s easy to start feeling down about the whole thing.
Things are supposed to cool down over the next few days, and the storms are supposed to stop for a while. Which means we should finally be able to chop our way through the undergrowth and get those trees my brother cut down for me! This should have been done weeks ago.
The Re-Farmer 