planning ahead

Ouch

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, today is going to be a day of rest, whether I intended it or not.

And a day of painkillers.

Last night, I finished setting up the living room so that, once we build the cat barriers, it will be a plant room.

We hardly use the living room. The aquarium greenhouses are there, so of course I’m checking on those regularly, as well as tending the few plants we’ve been able to keep in there without the cats absolutely destroying them. My husband’s leather working desk is there, but between the pain and the mind numbing meds, he doesn’t use it as often as he’d like. The TV (which was here when we moved in) is there, which we tend to forget even exists.

So it’s been cat heaven in there.

The whole room needed to be complete rearranged, which meant taking a lot of stuff out completely, then working section by section. Move stuff out of the way. Vacuum. Empty the cat hair filled cannister after a few passes. Vacuum again. Empty the canister. Clear the next section. Repeat.

The frustrating thing was discovering all the spots a couple of our boys has been spraying. Yes, all the males are fixed, but we have two that still spray, and in the most inconvenient and inaccessible spaces. Leyendecker didn’t start spraying until after he got blocked and miraculously survived. Gee, thanks, dude. 😕

It was also the time to do little things, like replace a ceiling hook with something stronger (I had to get my younger daughter to climb the little step ladder to do that for me!) for the grow lights, and set up a power bar in a better space, since where it was hanging before would be blocked by shelves. Thanks, M, for the Alien Tape! It works great!

We had the couch in the middle of the room, close to the TV, since when we do watch movies, we always use the subtitles. It’s a big TV, but it’s still hard to read the subtitles from across the room. Well, that had to change, so I took advantage of the situation to not only use the pet hair attachment on our vacuum cleaner on all sides, but to tip it over so we could find where that piece of spring I found when I first moved it came from. How that cats managed to snap that, I have no idea!

My daughters helped as much as they could, but it really was a one person job for the most part. One of the things that had to be moved out was this monster.

This is my older daughter’s jade tree that almost got killed during the move, because of how cold it got in the van when we stopped to try and sleep in the drive out. What started out as three small plants now has 7 trunks, and is thriving – in spite of many attempts by cats to destroy it! It is just massive, heavy, of course, and very awkward to carry! 😂 I can hardly imagine how big it would be, if it hadn’t had so many branches lost to the cold during the move, or broken off by cats.

We had the pair of these cheap, square Ikea tables side by side before but, with the new arrangement, they are now stacked on top of each other – and secured together. The girls found a way to secure the pot with a Bungee cord, so it couldn’t get knocked off by the cats. At some point, it needs to be transplanted into a bigger pot, which is going to make it even more difficult to move around! We do have wheeled plant platforms, but that’s not much use then the plant is several feet above the floor.

But it’s done. The mini greenhouse frame and several shelves (a couple of them are bookshelves converted from old TVs, back when the screens were in wooden cabinets) are now set up all along the window, stuff that was taken out are all back and in their new spots, and we actually have an open space in the middle of the living room, instead of it being cut in half by the couch and shelves. All we need to do now is get the cat barriers built and set up.

I look forward to the cats not having access to that room. Ever since I finished last night, they’ve been all over the place, investigating things and crawling into spaces they shouldn’t be in!

I “celebrated” by watching a movie when I was done.

From across the room.

Boy, do I need a new prescription for my glasses!

During the night is when I started paying for it all. My whole body has stiffened up, and everything is hurting – and that’s with painkillers!

A day of rest it is!

The Re-Farmer

Running all over the place

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Well, I did a lot more driving today than usual! Even compared to trips to the city.

With the van back, we were finally able to make a trip to the dump. From there, I headed into town to pick up some prescription refills and printouts for our tax returns. That was certainly an interesting part of the drive. It was bright and sunny, until I started getting closer to town, when I drove into a wall of fog! It got very thick for a while, with very low visibility, as we got closer to the lake. However, once we actually got into town, it started to lighten up, though I could see it was thicker all around town. Once I reached “downtown”, it was bright and sunny again – but with a wall of fog still visible in all directions!

I took advantage of being in town to make a few more stops. By the time I was done my errands, the fog was gone, except for on the lake. Sadly, I was unable to get any photos, as it would have been too dangerous to pull over while I was in the middle of it. Ah, well.

From there, I made my way to a town I haven’t been to since my dad took me to a cattle auction when I was a kid. I remember the auction, but not the town! 😄 I knew it was a fair distance from the main highway. Even after looking it up on the map, it still turned out further than I expected.

I was aiming for a feed store that was recommended to me. Thanks, Wolfsong! I looked it up on the map and had that image in my head, but I still drove right past it! I was looking at the building and vehicles as I drove by, thinking, this should be it, but didn’t see any signs. Of course, I saw them after I turned around and came back. They just weren’t where I was expecting them to be.

Once there, I was very happy to pick up two of these.

These were the largest bags they had, and at $36.30 a bag, they were only slightly more expensive then the 11kg bags I’ve been able to find in certain places. I probably should have got more, but two will do for now. The price is worth the drive to this town, which is nearer than the Walmart I’ve been getting 11kg bags at, and certainly closer than Costco.

I hope the cats like it, because that’s what we’ll be getting!

As a bonus, they also carry supplies we’ll need to get once we’ve got a chicken coop and can finally get chickens! Though I think we can find those closer, if I’m going there to get cat food, anyhow, it makes sense to buy the supplies at the same place.

That done, I’d made arrangements for one more trip.

Farm fresh eggs.

Yup! I got a couple more flats of eggs. These were about as fresh as fresh can be, too!

I just love all those colours!

When I got there, I had just missed the egg lady, so her husband grabbed the trays – and a few last eggs from the coop! – for me, while I got to pet their adorable goats.

One of whom wanted to climb right into the van and go for a ride!

Goats have the softest, nibblely lips.

Her husband called her while I was there and, since she was at the feed store in the town my mother lives in, he was able to send her a picture of the cat food I’d gotten, to compare prices. It seems they don’t carry this brand, and it was even recommended as being the best price for cat kibble. That was a nice confirmation to get.

A lot of the driving I did today was along roads I’ve never seen before – unless you count the gap in my childhood memory! 😄 It was interesting to go through sections of road, patched but not yet repaired, from last year’s flooding. !! There’s a lot of marshland in this area, plus another lake. Actually, the lake is almost directly West of us, while this town is past it. One of these days, I need to go check out this lake. Somehow, I’ve just never gone that way. The closest has been to a few farms in that direction, but never as far as the lake itself. The satellite maps don’t tell me much about how accessible things are. The roads basically just end or go around it. If I trusted the van more, I’d love to explore the area, just to see what’s there.

I’m glad I was finally able to make the trip to this feed store. Definitely not a “let’s swing by on the way to the city” sort of place!

It has also been the perfect day for it. We’re at -2C/28F right now. The snow is melting off all the roofs, and the paths are all getting soft. The kitties are running around all over, and thoroughly enjoying themselves!

I am so looking forward to the snow being gone, and to be able to get to get work done outside again! We have so much to do, but much of it has to wait for the ground to thaw, at least somewhat. We’re going to have a very tight window to get some of the new, permanent, garden structures done before we need to start sowing and transplanting!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: another Baker Creek order

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I couldn’t resist.

I ordered more seeds!

There was actually a reason for this.

One of the things I’ve been wanting to grow and acclimate to our climate is kulli corn. The first time I tried growing them, I ordered seeds maize morado seeds from Baker Creek, which I thought was kulli corn but those turned out to be Montana Morado corn… which then turned out to be Mountain Morado. Long confusing story there. They grew well, until something destroyed them!

Montana/Mountain Morado in our 2021 garden.

For last year, I was able to find and grow Peruvian kulli corn, they got wonderfully tall and healthy, started to form tassels, but not a single cob formed. After much research, I believe I’ve figured out why. These were grown in a new low raised bed, with trench composting and our purchased garden soil, plus beans interplanted with them as nitrogen fixers. Corn is a heavy nitrogen feeding plant after all but… it may have actually been too much nitrogen. Excess nitrogen can lead to lots of robust leaf growth, but can compromise fruiting.

Kulli corn in our 2022 garden.

I already have several types of corn, and I will not plant all of them, however I still want to grow the kulli corn, and was going to try growing them in a less nitrogen excessive plot. I went to order some seeds, only to find they are sold out.

After looking through various seed companies, I decided to go back to Baker Creek and get the Mountain Morado seeds again. They won’t need to be acclimated, and I can still use them to try and make some chicha morada.

Of course, I’m not about to order just one packet of seeds, so I got a few other things, but only one new thing.

In this picture from Baker Creek in 2021, the corn was still listed it as Montana Morado!

First, of course, is the Mountain Morado corn. When we first tried these, thinking they were something else, we started them indoors, even though corn doesn’t like being transplanted. However, I see this is now part of the description:  Direct sow into the richest soil available 1-2 weeks before last spring frost. 

A corn that can be direct sown before last frost will make a big difference! We can actually plant in May instead of June! There’s only 75 seeds in a packet, so we’ll have to make sure to save seed from these, if they succeed.

I am not expecting to plant sunflowers this year; it’s more a matter of effective use of space and time. However, I did go ahead and pick up more Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflower seeds. We did save seed heads from when we grew them before, but none of them got as large as they should have, and they were stored in the old kitchen, then the sun room, which means they’ve gone through freezing and heat cycles that have probably damaged the seeds. So I got more, to ensure I had good seed, and they will be properly stored. If we can actually plant some this year, that would be a bonus!

Another repeat is the Giant Rattle breadseed poppy. We had planted some from our own seed last year, but that spot has been completely redone, so even if they managed to self seed themselves, they’re not going to pop up again there. We do have another variety of bread seed poppy that didn’t get planted last year, because we didn’t have a space where we could treat them as perennials. The massive flooding we had last spring changed quite a few of our plans! However, I do still want to have two varieties of breadseed poppy, planted well away from each other, so we can see which we like best.

One last repeat was something that I’d looked at before, but rejected because of the insane price, and there were only 10 seeds in the packet for that price. Well, things have changed! The price of Spoon Tomato seeds has gone down, and there are now 15 seeds in a packet. 😄 We have a whole 5 seeds left in our original packet, and these miniscule tomatoes are something even I can eat, and fresh tomatoes normally make me want to gag. This time, I want to grow a few plants and make sure to save seeds from them. In the reviews, people who grew them commented that they self seed easily, since it’s almost impossible to pick all the teeny tomatoes without losing some, but again, the bed they were in was totally redone, so none came up the next year.

Finally, there is one last new item – sort of. Salsify. We actually have salsify; the same variety from two different companies. We were going to compare them, since their photos looked quite different. However, there is also this variety.

These are Duplex Russian Giant Scorzonera salsify. One of my daughters requested salsify because it’s a root that apparently tastes like seafood. She likes seafood, though we don’t get it often due to cost. She’d be happy with a root that tastes like it, instead!

It should be interesting to compare them. Because the roots get so long and can be fragile, we will likely be planting them in garbage cans. There are garbage cans all the place, in the barn and sheds, so we should be able to find three that we can use for these!

The down side of ordering from Bake Creek again is that orders to Canada over $20 now incur duty. I have no idea how much that would be on an order that came out to just over Cdn$40, including shipping. We’ll see, and that will help us figure out if it’s still worth ordering from there – or any other US seed company – again.

And here I thought I was done with buying seeds… 😅

The Re-Farmer

Getting ready, and a 2023 garden seedling update

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, my morning cuteness!

Butterscotch has discovered the window shelf! She doesn’t spend much time there, but enough to keep Nosencrantz from using it as often. 😄 So far, the only other cat that’s checked it out is Potato Beetle, and he does just that – checks it out, then leaves.

At the moment, I’m taking a bit of a break from preparing for spending a day and a night at my mother’s. This will be the first time I’ve been away from the farm overnight since we’ve moved here! Which means I’ve been spending a fair bit of time digging around, trying to remember, where is my travel toothbrush? Do I still have a travel toothbrush? Oh, there’s a case for a full size toothbrush. What smaller bag should I use to pack into, and how much will I have to dig to find it behind the barricade made to stop the cats from using the suitcases and scratching posts? Does my husband have an extra pill case I can use for my meds and supplements?

It’s just an overnight trip, but it’s an overnight trip to my mother’s which puts a whole new level of considerations. Plus, I want to stick to my Lenten fast while also not depleting my mother’s grocery supply, so I’m not only bringing food for myself, but enough to share with her. She won’t be able to eat for at least 4 hours after the procedure, since they are going to be freezing her throat, so she’s going to be hungry.

I ended up making a quick trip into town with my mother’s car for a few things for my overnighter, plus a few extras until I can make my next city trip. That will, at the very least, have to wait until after the tire on the van is fixed. Hopefully, our mechanic will find something suitable at the auction that the financing company will accept for the loan that’s already approved. So many things are getting delayed or side tracked because of all the problems with the van!

I am so thankful we have my mother’s car that we can use as a back up vehicle. It’s been needed often enough to be worth the extra expense. Living out here, having two vehicles is a necessity, not a luxury.

Meanwhile…

While tending the seedlings in the large aquarium greenhouse, I graduated the drum gourds that germinated first. They’re getting tall enough to need more space from the lights, so that one pot has been moved to the lower tray that the onions and luffa are on. I almost, kinda, maybe, think I could see new growth in the one last pot with drum gourd seeds!

Now, in theory, I really should thin out one of the seedlings in the pot I moved. The problem is, they are both so very strong and healthy! Meanwhile, the second pair of seedlings are still recovering from being stuck in the hulls of their seeds and are not looking anywhere near as healthy yet. So I am keeping both and, when it’s time to pot them up, will thin by transplanting one out into its own pot, while the other can be potted up without removing it from the biodegradable pot. Hopefully, the one that gets thinned out will survive. The more seedlings I can keep alive until it’s time to transplant outside, the better our changes of having at least one plant survive transplanting and maybe even enjoy a full growing season!

I took a closer look at the tiny little zucca seedling. There was still just an “elbow” showing, but something seemed odd about it.

Where those roots?

Yup.

I very gently poked around in the soil and found the seed leaves were still thoroughly encased in the hull, which was trapped enough by the soil that instead of the leaves lifting up, the root end was being pushed out! So I very, very carefully and gently uncovered the seed hull encased leaves while covering the roots – only to accidentally reveal a second seedling working its way out, too! That one was also still stuck in the hull, so I loosened the soil over that, too. Once they’ve gotten large and strong enough to fully emerge and start standing upright, I will gently remove the hulls, like I did with the second pair of drum gourds that germinated..

I’m just babying these suckers! 😂

I am just itching to start more seeds but, for what we’ve got, it’s still a bit too early.

Well, break time is done. Time to go dig out a bag to pack for tomorrow.

The Re-Farmer

Cat pile, totally flat, and enjoying a quiet day

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My husband got this picture last night.

Just mashed together in that corner! Adorable. Later on, the entire bench was covered, and there was even one on the camp chair next to it.

This morning, I couldn’t even get a head count, they were all running around so much. It wasn’t any warmer, yet, but they seemed to be really enjoying the bright sunshine!

While doing my rounds, I made sure to check on the van.

*sigh*

What I found yesterday that looked like was the likely damage is now completely hidden. I’ve contacted our mechanic to let him know I won’t be home on Monday, when he was hoping to call me if he’s been successful in finding us a replacement vehicle, and also let him know we’ll be bringing the van back to get the flat fixed sometime next week.

I don’t even want to think about it right now.

Tomorrow, I’ll be prepping for staying overnight with my mother, including bringing my own food. Probably drink, too. I’m hoping she’ll accept my Lenten fast as the reason for that, but it’s not her idea of fasting, so I’ll probably be given a hard time about it. I also just don’t want to be eating her grocery supplies!

So today, I’m going to basically take a break and enjoy a quiet day. It’s going to be a while before I get another one!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: seedling progress

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This morning I got a picture of some of our seedlings, after refilling trays to water them from below.

There are still only two little pepper seedlings. The thyme and lemongrass don’t seem to be growing much. I think this might be part of why they need to be started so early!

The two drum gourd seedlings in one pot are still the only ones to have germinated. With using these biodegradable pots, it’s been interesting to see how the pot the germinated seeds are in dries out so much faster than the other ones. Even the square cells the herbs are in show noticeable drying out in the ones with the most seedlings. For this reason, I still mist them as well as water from below.

Last year, I remember my first zucca melon seeds never germinated, and I had to try again. I’m hoping I won’t need to do that again this year. The zucca and the drums need as much growing time as we can give them.

We’re going to have to start other seeds soon. That means rotating things out of the aquarium greenhouses and, for that, we still need to make a trip to the city to pick up the materials we need to build barriers and keep the cats out of the living room. When picking up eggs yesterday, I noticed they had lumber in their truck and asked about prices. Lumber prices have gone down a LOT in the last while, which is encouraging. The prices are still high, but not astronomical anymore.

The trip to the city will have to wait until after the van’s date at the garage to get the temperature gauge sensor replaced.

Still holding out hope that we’ll qualify for financing on the Caravan, but if I’m going to be honest with myself, the odds are not in our favour. Mind you, our situation wasn’t much better when we got financing for the Grand Caravan we got, years ago. Oddly enough, my husband being on disability gives us a more reliable income now than when he was still working. Nothing like moving to a new city for a 2 year contract, only to have the contract end after 6 months, instead!

Ah, well. Whatever happens, happens. We just need to deal with what’s in front of us.

Which, at the moment, means turning the living room into a cat proof plant room. 😁

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: first drum!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I spotted a hint of green while spritzing the pots in the aquarium greenhouse last night, so I was quite eager to check this morning.

This, my friends, is our very first African Drum gourd seedling!

I’m rather surprised that this sprouted first. The peppers we’ve got planted have yet to germinate, but here we’ve got one of the massive gourds breaking ground!

You can see the big, remarkably fuzzy, seeds on the far right of the above photo.

I’m quite excited by this! It’s going to be a challenge to get these to grow to full maturity, so the gourds can then be set aside to cure and dry for at least a year. The zucca melon are also supposed to get huge, but they are for eating, not crafting.

The inside of the tank is lined with insulation, and the tray is on a heat mat, but I do wonder if it’s still too cold for the peppers. They’re at the end of the tray right in the corner. I’ve considered rotating the tray, but if it’s too cold for peppers, then it would be too cold for the drum gourds and zucca melons. We have time to try again with peppers, if it comes down to that, but not the drum gourds or zucca melons. Maybe I can find a way to rearrange the onions and luffa seedlings, so I can shift the tray on the heat mat closer to the middle.

I think I’ll go do that now.

The Re-Farmer

Backordered seeds in, fuzzy butt, and trying to keep up

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

You’d think a city shopping trip would be more tiring than running errands with my mother, but nooooo…

We are having another beautiful sunny day, though the wind has certainly picked up. I counted 23 yard cats while doing their kibble and warm water this morning.

I was just coming back to the house would I saw these two, finishing off the kibble on the cat house roof. I tried to get a good picture of Brussel, but she moved around and sat with her back to me.

I swear, that fuzzy butt of hers is bigger than the little guy beside her!

She won’t let me anywhere near her – I had to zoom in quite a bit to get this shot – but she’s less shy than her sister, Sprout, who runs off as soon as she sees me and doesn’t come back to eat until I’m back inside.

Sadness.

When planning today’s outing with my mother, I brought up getting Chinese food for lunch again. She said no, made a big deal of the cost, and that she could make lunch for us, etc. Well, I didn’t listen to her. I left early enough to pick up some parcels at the post office before they closed for 2 hours over the lunch period, so when I got to her town, I picked up lunch anyhow and showed up early. She laughed and nattered a bit about my not listening to her, so I told her that I wanted a treat. Only later, while we were eating, did she say that I must have heard her thoughts. She had been poking around her fridge for something to make for lunch, didn’t find anything she wanted, and wasn’t up to cooking, anyhow. She’d been regretting telling me not to bring food! The next thing she knew, there I was with lunch for both of us! So that worked out.

After lunch and a bit of a visit, we headed out to do her errands, getting groceries last of all. I stayed long enough to put everything away, then started getting ready to head home. My mother was all ready to make tea, but I told her I had to go. As usual, she started going on about how, if we visit her, we should plan on staying for a long time. I told her I do – that’s why I come over so early! So we can get a visit in, first. I must say, I was pretty tired by then, anyhow. My mother is 91 yrs old, has a bum knee and uses a walker, but that hardly slows her down at all! It takes quite a bit to keep up with her, that’s for sure. She didn’t push for me to stay, though. I know she was tired, too, and would probably go for a nap as soon as I was gone!

Once at home, I found one of our backordered seeds from Veseys was in the mail.

I’m looking forward to these. I keep hearing about how great Delicata squash is, but it’s not a good storage variety. This new Honeyboat variety is described as good for storage, so I figured it was worth trying. At 100 days to maturity, it’s going to be one of the earlier ones to start indoors.

This leaves one more packet of seeds on back order to come in from Veseys.

While at the grocery store with my mother, I noticed they had a couple of seed displays up. I was so tempted to get more, but we already have so much, and in varieties better suited to our needs.

Still…

… you can’t really have too many seeds, can you?

I resisted.

For now!

The Re-Farmer

Pretty Poser, and this is $171

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

We had another lovely day today! Nice and sunny, with a high of -9C/16F, and almost no wind chill at all. The cats are quite loving it, romping around in the sun and the snow.

I had the hardest time getting this picture of Pointy Baby! He kept trying to reach out to me, or my phone. I managed to catch a shot during one split second he gave me a pretty pose! I counted 24 cats outside this morning.

With my last trip to the city, where were very few things on my list that I didn’t get, and I wasn’t intending to make another trip so soon. However, I’m going to be helping my mother with errands tomorrow, and I don’t want to shop on the weekend, so I figured I’d better head out today, before some things start running too low. I went to the closer Walmart, with the possible extra trip to Canadian Tire to get more stove pellet litter. I ended up not needing the extra trip.

This is $171.11

They had hardwood pellets in stock this time, and the price has actually gone down! They were $5 each. At Canadian Tire, the hardwood pellets have gone up in price from $6.99 to almost $8, while their softwood pellets stayed the same price. The Walmart price had been comparable to the Canadian Tire price, but I’d only ever seen softwood pellets. These hardwood pellets are the same brand that Canadian Tire carries. So I got two, and I would have gotten two more, if I weren’t also getting kibble.

Their inventory of large kibble bags was low again, except for the super cheap no-name brand, which come in 7kg/15lb bags. There were no 11kg/24lb bags, so I picked up a couple of 9kg/20lb bags, plus their largest size case of canned cat food. They all cost just under $30 each.

I wasn’t able to find the usual shampoo and conditioner we use, in the big bottles with pumps. I haven’t seen those in quite a while, so I got smaller bottles of the same brand – two types with different oils in them – to try. They were on sale, at under $5 each.

The only thing on my list that was groceries was the icing sugar, but I also grabbed some red rooibos tea. My husband requested nacho fixings, so I got the giant jar of olives (which was cheaper than at the wholesale place!) and no-name brand tortilla chips. I got a couple of loaves of rye bread. I saw some bakery cookies for sale and got some salted caramel chip cookies as a treat, plus a variety pack of gum to keep in the van. One last extra was a couple of packages of biodegradable pots. All of these were between $3 and $5.

They didn’t have the larger size pots that I would prefer to use for certain seeds, but these ones will do for others. Eventually, when we’re planting seeds that aren’t as much of an issue for size or potting up, we’ll just use the red solo cups we have so much of. I expect we’ll need at least a couple more bags of seed starting mix, but not for quite a while.

Everything except the big bags and the canned cat food fit into just one of my hard sided grocery bags.

With this done, anything else we need for the month can be picked up locally, as needed. We will be making one more trip to the city, though, to get the materials we need to build a cat barrier to the living room. This is a project the girls are planning out and paying for, so they get to tell me when that’s going to happen! 😄

After the shopping was unloaded, we loaded the van up again for a trip to the dump and I headed out again. That’s a quick trip, at least.

Then, more running around tomorrow, this time with my mother’s car. After that, I should be able to play hermit again for a little while! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: starting gourds, peppers and herbs

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

What a beautiful day it is today! As I write this, we are at -1C/30F, and have yet to reach our predicted high of 0C/32F.

It’s a good thing it’s getting nice and warm. Yesterday evening, I went to set up the one of the new ceramic heat bulbs in the sun room. Before I did, I screwed it into the fixture and plugged it in, in the old kitchen, to test it.

It didn’t work.

So I took the heat bulb and removed one of the bathroom light bulbs to test it there.

It works.

Looks like the old light fixture is toast. This was something my brother had attached to a board so that he could use the heat of a light bulb to keep pipes from freezing in the kitchen, when this place was empty. We might have some other portable light somewhere that I could safely set up in the sun room, but if we do, it would be in one of the sheds or the barn, where we won’t have access until spring.

The sun room is above freezing, however, so the kitties will be fine. This morning, I counted 25!

Today I went through the packets of seeds to start indoors and selected these as needing to be started very early.

I was finding contradictory information about the Sweet Chocolate bell peppers. The package says to start the seeds indoors 8-12 weeks before last frost – but the days to maturity I found maxed out at 86 days! We could potentially start though by direct seeding by that, if the soil were warm enough right after our last frost date. I am considering planting more of them, when I do the other peppers, but we have so many varieties to try, I don’t want to take up the space, if we don’t have to.

The lemongrass will eventually end up in a large pot, while the thyme will be going into a raised bed in the old kitchen garden. They, and the peppers, will eventually need to be potted up at least once before going outside, so I decided to put them in the degradable square pots, so that can be done without disturbing the roots.

Because of the size the Zucca melon and drum gourds will get before transplanting, those went straight into the largest degradable pots I have for now.

But first, I needed to make space in the aquarium greenhouses.

I could fit only two trays of the onions in the small aquarium. The problem is, there’s nothing we have that fits in there that can be used as a drain tray for bottom watering.

We have a large jade tree that we had to cage with hardware cloth because the cats wouldn’t stop digging in it. I had to remove the top of it because the jade tree was starting to grow through the openings, so I used that to rig a cover for the tank. Last year, we used salvaged screen windows, but they were larger than the top of the tank and, even with weights, the cats kept knocking it about. I’m hoping this works. On the one hand, the openings are large enough that the cats could reach through and dig at the trays – the first year we used this tank as a greenhouse, the cats destroyed our onion starts by reaching through the filter opening in the tank’s lid. They were incredibly determined to get at those trays! However, the larger size mesh also means it’ll be harder for the cats to walk on it, so maybe they’ll just stay off?

We’ll see!

The luffa seedlings have joined the remaining tow trays of onions. I wanted to keep them in this aquarium greenhouse, since it’s warmer than the little one, thanks to the two lights above. One of the seedlings seems to have stalled and isn’t getting any bigger. The second seed in the pot hasn’t germinated at all, and probably won’t by now. I thinned out the extra seedlings that were in two of the pots. So we are probably down to three luffa. Hopefully, they will survive long enough for transplanting!

We now have four cells each of lemongrass, thyme and Sweet Chocolate peppers – those thyme seeds are so incredibly tiny! While I was sowing the seeds for those, I had six each of scarified zucca and drum gourd seeds soaking in water, and now each round pot has two seeds. The seed starting mix was premoistened and the surface got spritzed with water after the seeds were planted, but I also made sure to add a lot of water to the tray, once it was on the warming mat. I want those pots to absorb water from the tray, not the soil.

It should be interesting to see how these do, with being started this early! We won’t need to start more seeds until probably March, though I’ll have to double check on some of them. I think things like the Crespo squash and Boston Marrow could use an earlier start. We’ll have time to move things around in the living room to make space for trays as they get rotated out of the aquarium greenhouses while need seed trays go in.

Since the fixture used for the heat bulb in the sun room is broken, I won’t need the frame of the mini greenhouse to support it anymore. The mini greenhouse can be brought in and gotten ready, too. Plus, we should be able to use some of the plant hooks in the ceiling to hang the shop lights we’re using for grow lights, and generally have a much better set up than last year.

Which means we’ll have to make building a cat barrier a priority over the next few weeks!

The Re-Farmer