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Cold progress

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Well, today has turned out to be a pretty miserable day, weather wise. It’s 9C/48F right now – as warm as we’re going to get today – but the “feels like” is at 6C/44F. After the heat we’ve had in the last while, this is sweater weather. A few weeks ago, it would have been t-shirt weather! 😄

There was some wind, but the direction changed, so I felt I could bring the transplants out for a few hours. They need to get used to the chill, too, before getting in the ground.

I had intended to take down some trees to use to build our trellis tunnel, and was planning to haul out the electric chainsaw and an extension cord. We do have a power outlet on the fence along the road that I could hook up to. There was, however, a constant threat of rain. The trees I singled out are not very large, but straight and tall. I could take them down with hand saws, but I really wasn’t up to that.

So, I worked to solve a problem, instead.

This one.

This is the bed the shallots were transplanted into.

Which the cats promptly started to lie on.

I put the largest of the old window screens we use for things like curing onions, etc. in the fall to cover it. It’s not quite bit enough, and I kept having to put it at more of an angle because, of course, the cats still went on top of it. Sometimes, I’d find one corner pressed down inside the bed. No damage to the shallots, but that’s just been luck, so far.

So this bed needs protection from the cats, with a decent amount of height to it. I rifled through some material we used to make covers for the long, low raised beds in the main garden area for wood. Those frames had started to break apart over the winter, but I was able to take them apart, and some of the wood was still useable. I brought over three lengths, which you can see in the background of the photo.

This bed is 4′ x 2′ in size, and the boards I brought over were 8′ long, so I was able to cut one in half for the sides of a frame, choosing the board with the least damage. From a second board, I was able to cut the end pieces, which are 2′, minus the thickness of two boards. Nothing is exact, so after marking 2′, I used the edges of the boards to mark of the actual length needed.

This would have been a good day to use the miter saw I got at the garage sale awhile back, but I would have had to bring it outside to use it, and I didn’t want to risk it getting rained on.

I took progress photos and will probably make a video of the process when it’s done, but I had to stop before it was finished. This is what it looks like, now.

The chicken wire and hula hoop pieces were salvaged from the old frames. You can also see that I used small pieces of wood to reinforce the corners, using 3″ long pieces of wood. I had planned to just nail them in place, but didn’t have good nails for it (I’ve never seen the tip of a nail bend like that before… 😲), so I had to use screws for those, too. I did break out the drill to make pilot holes. Thankfully, the rain held off while I was using it.

Gooby really wanted attention while I was working. Not good when using cutting implements or power tools!

To finish it off, I need to add chicken wire to the ends, plus add a support across the top – because you just know that a cat will try to climb or jump on it! I’m still debating whether I want to add a third hoop in the middle. For such a small frame I normally wouldn’t bother, but with the cats… it might just be worth it.

I had to stop because it finally started to rain too much to stay out in it. I had already brought the transplants back into the sun room.

What I’ve done here is basically a miniature version of what I want to build for the box beds the carrots and spinach are planted in, so in a way, this is a test run. Doing the ends is going to be a finicky, to work around the curves. Chicken wire is nice and flexible, at least.

So for now, the shallots are still not really protected, since the cats can just walk right through the open ends, but with the weather the way it is right now, I think they’re more likely to be hiding out in various warm shelters. This is the coldest it’s been outside since they were kicked out of the sun room, so we could use it as a greenhouse.

I don’t know how long this cover will last, but I used the least damaged wood and made sure to reinforce the frame at the corners. Given the small size, it has a pretty good chance of lasting a few years, I think.

The one last thing I’ll need to figure out is the best way to secure it to the frame. I don’t need to latch it or anything like that. I just need to make sure it doesn’t get pushed off. I had considered making the frame sized to fit inside the logs, but with their uneven surfaces and dimensions, I decided against that. Plus, having contact with the soil will make the wood rot faster, and it’s old and weathered enough as it is. I might take advantage of those corner braces and make “legs” that extend down the outside of the bed, so that if something does push against it, it won’t move more than a little bit.

But that can wait until later. For now, it really needs those ends closed off!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Red Thumb potatoes are in

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Gooby tried to help.

He was not a very good helper!

The Red Thumb fingerling potatoes had to get into the ground, so they went into the beds that were ready.

I have no doubt I was crowding them a bit too much, but these are fingerling potatoes, so I hope that will make a difference. I still couldn’t fit them all in the bed along the retaining wall. The last of them went into the short end of the L shaped bed, where you can see the straw mulch. I was able to add straw mulch to the rectangular bed with the Irish Cobbler potatoes in it, too.

The extra height added to the bed along the retaining wall came in handy. I did work in some of the composted sheep’s manure first. The bed was already starting to compact! The height of the soil is almost as high as the retaining wall (it is settling a bit, still). The logs are high enough to hold the straw mulch in place.

Unfortunately, the cats seem to think that straw is there, just for them! Especially Gooby.

It started raining by the time I was ready to add the straw, but I gave all the straw a thorough watering, anyhow. They’ll get more deep watering, even with the rain. I’ve noticed that, if the straw doesn’t get saturated first, the top will get wet, but the bottom stays dry, so the moisture never quite gets to the ground. I want to get these beds soaked down through all the layers. Once that’s done, the beds will hold the moisture for quite a long time before they will need watering again.

The whole point of our wanting to use grow bags this year was because we have such a problem with slugs. I’m hoping that, by planting these in raised beds, it will be less of a problem. I suppose we could leave out some beer traps for the slugs, but I have no doubt the cats would be getting into them! I’d rather encourage garter snakes or toads and frogs.

Meanwhile, we’re also seeing peas starting to break ground. Just barely visible! We’ve got carrots sprouting, too, but they are very small and it doesn’t look like we have a high germination rate. They really should have had the plastic right on the ground until they germinated, instead of on hoops, but the hoops were as much to keep the cats off as to keep the moisture in. Hopefully, the heat inside didn’t kill off too many seeds. We do still have 2 other varieties of carrots to sow, so we should be able to make up for any losses.

We’re getting air quality warnings right now. There is a cold front moving in, so the temperatures will drop quite a bit, tomorrow (though not low enough for frost), and with it will come smoke from the many fires in Alberta. Rain is desperately needed, though with so many of the fires being started by people, more than rain is going to be needed to get these under control!

Along with rain today, we’ve also got a fair bit of wind. Nothing exceptional, but too much to take the transplants out. We have no way to protect them from the wind on the various surfaces we use to lay them out. So they remain in the sunroom, which isn’t much warmer than outside right now, with the fan and the lights, for today.

I’m glad I got the potatoes in right away. Rainy, grey weather like this always makes me incredibly sleepy. If I’d delayed it, I probably would not have been able to get it done. As it is, I think I’m going to have to lie down for a bit. I can barely keep my eyes open, as I write this!

So… all three varieties of potatoes are planted. Which means I can finally turn my attention to taking down the trees we’ll be needing to build the trellis tunnel. That should have been done, long ago!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden transplant status, and good car news

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But first, the cuteness!

I counted only 18 this morning.

Today has turned out to be a MUCH more pleasant day than yesterday. We did officially reach of high of 30C/86F, which makes the current temperature of 20C/68F feel downright cool! It was very refreshing while I was going my morning rounds and taking the transplants out for continued hardening off.

I took the folding set of closet doors I found in the shed and set it up on the hand rails of the laundry platform. It’s almost enough to keep the cats off!

You can’t really see them, but the squash and gourds in the bins on the left are getting huge! In the foreground, in the centre, you can see some new Zucca melon coming up enthusiastically. I’d planted more, since so few germinated the first time I planted them, but it’s taken this heat for them to finally get growing.

After I took this picture, a cat jumped up and nearly squashed them, but they seem to be okay!

I’ve got things set up on the kibble house roof to support one end of the trays, making them almost level. The metal baking sheets work very well for that. I should have picked up more of them before Costco ran out! I didn’t expect them to disappear entirely.

I’ve started to take the trays with the most recently planted seeds out, too. A few are showing germinated seeds, and there’s no reason not to harden them off at the same time.

I might actually start planting some of the larger tomatoes and the first peppers this weekend. We’ve got one chilly night expected between now and then and, after that, even the one colder day forecasted has no risk of frost. I want to plant these peppers in the wattle weave bed, which will also give them more protection, as well as the full sunlight they need, plus they would be relatively easy to provide protection for there, in case the long range forecast into June is wrong and we do actually get frost.

The priority today, though, is getting the last of the potatoes in.

My daughter and I took my mother’s car into town to be checked out. All they were going to do was see why the check engine light was on. My eyes have been going wonky at times, so my daughter came along just in case I needed her to drive. We dropped the car off and I explained what was going on, then I took her for lunch. Well. Lunch for me. Breakfast for her. She hadn’t eaten yet! We basically just had to wait until I got text saying the car was ready to pick up.

There really wasn’t anything wrong. A couple of codes came up, but nothing of concern. His guess is that at some point, when we started the car, it got a low pressure reading on the oil, which was changed fairly recently. Once the light was on, it stayed on. He cleared it, but had no work to recommend getting done. He didn’t even charge me for the reading.

I talked to my husband later on about my not being able to use the OBDII reader he got me. It didn’t work before, because of a known Blu Tooth issue on my phone at the time. We traded phones, because his worked, but I’ve since gotten a newer phone. I didn’t expect to have the same issue with the new phone. When he realized the phone simply would not pair with the OBDII reader, he remembered that it works with his table. So if the check engine light turns on again, I’ll have to remember go use his tablet to try and get a reading. Meanwhile, the light has stayed off so far. Hopefully, it will stay that way!

It wasn’t a wasted trip, though. I got to spend some relaxed time with my daughter. 😊

I’m just glad there was nothing wrong with the car. Confirming that at the garage was also well worth the trip.

Well, things are going to start cooling down. Time to get to work!

The Re-Farmer

Look who followed me! Plus, car trouble. Again.

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I spent some time just sitting outside before going to bed last night, enjoying the cool of the evening. Having the swing bench outside, to make room for the transplants in the sun room, is really nice.

Of course, Gooby was all over me, wanting lots of attention!

It was starting to get pretty dark when I heard what sounded like the beginnings of a cat fight in the outer yard, so I went to investigate. I never found the cats I was hearing, but the sound of frogs from the pond and gravel pit was so loud, I decided to go the outer yard fence and try and capture it on video. The grass from last year is still tall, but now has new growth in it, so it took some effort to get through!

I was in the middle of taking a short video when I could hear something in the grass behind me, coming closer and closer.

Then my legs got attacked.

In a loving way!

Make sure your speakers are on, to hear all the frogs!

I made sure to carry him back with me. I wouldn’t want an owl to make off with him!

Gooby just can’t seem to get enough attention from humans.

In other things, I made a quick trip to the post office to pick up a parcel this morning, and the check engine light turned on in my mother’s car.

*sigh*

My daughter did the driving yesterday and it had turned on then. I heard the ding when it turned on, but didn’t know what it was. She assumed I already knew about it, but it had not turned on before. I tried hooking up my OBDII reader, but it won’t connect with my phone. I had the problem before, and it was a problem with the phone’s BluTooth, not the reader. I have a new phone now and this is the first time I’ve tried to use the reader with it.

So I contacted our mechanic about it. I can drop by any time tomorrow afternoon and they’ll check it out.

Right now, we’re not using the van at all until we can get it to the garage to get a noise checked out. We won’t have the budget for that until next month. My mother’s car, however, is a higher priority right now. If there’s something that needs to be fixed, we’ll have to dip into the money being set aside for a down payment on replacement van. Which would really suck. Hopefully, it will be something minor.

Today is not going to be a very productive day outside. In fact, I’m not even taking the transplants outside to harden off today. As I write this, we are already at 27C/81F, and may reach as high as 30C/86F by the evening, depending on which app I look at. We don’t have a shady spot to set out the transplants, and I don’t want them to get sunburned or bake in their pots.

It also means, no one is going to be doing things like sifting the garden soil and hauling wheelbarrow loads over, to fill the bags we’ll be planting the potatoes in, until things start cooling off. Looking at the forecast for the day, that likely won’t be until tomorrow morning. We’re supposed to reach our hottest temperatures at about 4pm, and stay hot for several hours. The days are getting longer, but not that long!

Still, I’m hoping to get at least some things done. We need to break out the wood chipper, so we can run straw from last year’s deep mulch beds through the shredder, as well as some of the wood chips from the pile. The big commercial wood chipper the tree guys have did a great job of breaking down the branch piles that our wood chipper can’t do – mostly because they are too crooked to fit into the chipper! – but the resulting chips are quite course. That’s fine for mulching around trees, or to add among the layers filling a new raised bed, but is a bit hard to work around when used as mulch on the top of a garden bed. Plus, breaking the straw or wood chips down finer means they will break down into the soil faster, too, and our soil really needs that organic matter.

We are also going to have to break out the lawn mower! Especially in the outer yard, in front of the barn, where we were unable to mow last year. If we don’t get that under control quickly, it’s going to be a lot more difficult later on. Plus, grass clippings are gold, and we’ll need a lot of it for the garden beds! I don’t even bother putting on the grass catcher. It fills too quickly. Plus, I find that if I let the clippings sit for a couple of days to dry, then rake it up, it’s easier to work with.

Tomorrow we’re supposed to reach “only” about 18 or 20C/64 or 68F, and then get some rain the day after, so I hope to get at least the area around the pile of garden soil mowed, so I’m not fighting the wheelbarrow through tall grass with every load.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Happy Mother’s Day!

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My darling daughters have treated me to Chinese food today!

They got enough to last us a couple of days, at least! We can’t order often, so when we do, we order a lot!

The Chinese restaurant we order from is right next to the lake, which is still covered with ice. What a refreshing breeze coming off the lake! Here, we are at 24C/75F, and tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter. So I really, really appreciate that we don’t need to do any cooking for a couple of days!

There is only one downside for today. I had some friends let me know that the thief that stole my personal Facebook account is at it again. The first scam they tried was to give away a PS5 in revenge for a cheating boyfriend. Today, they used the same pictures, but claimed it was meant for “my” newly deceased son. Of course, I have no son, and most people on my friends list would know that. But some whom I only know online through mutual interests might not. The first friend that let me know about it reported my old account as hacked (again!), and left a comment telling people my account was hacked and recommending unfriending me from that account. Since then, I’ve had another friend let me know about the scam post, which was at least flagged as false information by FB, but there’s nothing to show that there are any comments, so the first friend’s comment likely got removed, and I imagine she’s been blocked as well.

Some people are just slime.

But, I will not let that ruin my mother’s day!

Excuse me while I enjoy some delicious Chinese food!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Irish Cobbler potatoes planted

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The girls and I are still trying to figure out the best place to set up grow bags for the potatoes, where they would get full sun, but also be closer to the house for watering. We don’t have a lot of the old feed bags left to use as grow bags, so we decided to use one of the Old Kitchen Garden beds that was recently fixed up.

The bed still needed topping up, so I started by adding some of the sheep manure I recently purchased. I didn’t add a lot, as this bed was filled with purchased garden soil, and it should still be pretty rich in nutrients. What’s missing is organic matter. This is a blend of compost and composted manure, so that will help a bit. This got worked in with a rake.

Also… do you see that bit of green poking out of the wattle weave bed?

It’s a stray onion!

I have no idea where that onion came from. This bed had never had onions planted in it.

I’m not going to complain, though!

Next, it was time to raid the garden soil pile and do some soil sifting.

Three wheelbarrow loads of the garden soil was brought over. The weeds are already starting to grow under the cover on that pile!

Some of the Irish Cobbler seed potatoes were very small, so to fit them all in the bed, I put some of the smaller ones together. Then they got buried as deep as I could, so they don’t need to be hilled.

As this area slopes away from the house, the far end of the bed is somewhat deeper than the end closer to the house, to level it off. Still, with this bed being newly rebuilt, and the layers of organic matter below, the top layer of soil still isn’t very deep.

Once the potatoes were planted, I scattered some stove pellets over the top, then began watering. Once the pellets had expanded into sawdust, I used a rake to spread it out evenly. This is not at all for the potatoes, but to protect the soil and help reduce soil compaction. Over time, we will continue to add grass clippings and wood chips as mulch. The potatoes will easily be able to grow through a mulch. With this bed being higher now, and not using straw for a mulch, hopefully, that will reduce the slug problems!

After spreading out the sawdust, I gave it a deep watering, and plan to water it again a couple more times, today. I want the water to go through all those bottom layers that were added, which will speed up their anaerobic breakdown, while also acting as a sponge to retain moisture. Once those bottom layers are good and moist, this bed should not need much watering at all.

Now comes the hard part.

Keeping the cats from digging in the bed!

The Re-Farmer

Bad pain day

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I didn’t overdo it yesterday. Honest. I have done far more physical labour than I did yesterday, without much problem.

So why am I hurting so much today?

It’s not muscle pain, either. It’s my joints. My knees are a mess… well… more of a mess than usual… but worst of all are my finger joints. They had been getting better, but are much worse again.

Makes it rather hard to type, that’s for sure.

I got the girls to feed the cats this morning, but did eventually get outside to switch out the trail cam memory cards, check the planted garden beds, do a bit of watering. Even that was difficult.

So today is going to be a pain killer and recovery day. I’ve got some computer stuff to work on, like another time lapse video to put together.

I’m also still trying to recover my personal Facebook account that got stolen. I got zero progress on that. However, I am still getting emails from Instagram, which is linked to that account. When I got one last night, I decided to check it out.

Of course, I couldn’t log in and following the links from the email resulted in error messages. However, since my personal email address was still attached to this account, I was able to recover the account and change the password.

So now, at least, I have my Instagram account. Not that I was using it, but it’s something!

If only recovering my original account were that easy. It just blows me away how useless Facebook support is for this.

On the plus side, it seems all my friends that have been also reporting the account, and the posts being made selling crazy stuff, calling the account out as hacked and even playing games and stringing along the thief, apparently there is no longer any activity coming out of my original account anymore. Hopefully, it will stay that way!

Anyhow.

Time to pain killer up and ingest some sustenance.

The Re-Farmer

Brothers, and some progress

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It’s not often I’m able to get these two brothers in one shot so well!

We’ve got Gooby, with one gooby eye, then Adam and Driver. Gosh, those two look alike! When the girls named them, the patterns in their fur hadn’t finished growing out, and they were really hard to tell apart. It’s easier now, only because Adam has enough white fur to not be a tuxedo.

Then there are the two white and greys in the picture. They are among the unnamed ones, because we can’t tell them apart well enough to give them any! In the morning light, the one next to Gooby looks like it has an orange ear, but nope. It’s grey fur.

I got a decent amount of progress this morning. I started taking the transplants out to harden them off. The onions are still out right now, as they’ve been taken out for a while now, but the others were just for an hour. We weren’t able to make a dedicated surface for them, so the trays got laid out wherever I could find stable space. The laundry platform was covered and, with a couple of boards to support one side, others were put on the kibble house roof. The angle of the roof is pretty steep, so the cats don’t usually go on it.

The smallest trays went onto the shelf shelter by the sun room door. Only the more recent seed starts stayed inside – and I can see one Lady Godiva hulless pumpkin working on germinating!

Alas, while I was bringing things out, one of the white and greys went into the sun room and jumped up on the table, knocking things about, including the mini tray with the Classic Eggplant. Those were already struggling, and it looked like only one was surviving, and now even that one has been damaged. So frustrating! But we have so many things to grow this year, the loss will not be a problem, and we still have the Little Finger eggplant seedlings.

The good thing about starting to harden off the transplants is that it allowed me to arrange the trays more efficiently in the sun room when bringing them back.

Once they were back inside, I started the next big job, which I’ll be making another video of. The area around my daughter’s tulips has had the chicken wire fencing removed, the dead, dying and non-productive trees removed, and the new apple tree has been transplanted. I planted it closer to the lilacs, which will shelter and protect it from the north, while it will also get full sun – and be close enough to the ornamental apple trees for the cross pollination it needs for better production. Of course, it’ll be a few years before we get any apples from it!

By then, it was 22C/72F (as I write this, we’ve reached our predicted high of 23C/74F), and way too hot to keep working outside. Later on, the girls will clean up the branch pile for me, and we have to figure out how to put the fence wire back up, to protect the tulips and new apple tree from the deer. The wire had been held in place by the trees and stumps that I removed, so we’ll need to set up posts. We do have wooden fence posts, but they are being used to keep things from blowing away right now. There are also T posts we’ve found, but I have other plans for those. It’s not like we’re putting up permanent fencing, here, so that gives us some flexibility on what we can use. We’ll figure it out.

For now, though, we’re staying in the cooler indoors – even the sun room feels cooler than outside right now! – and staying hydrated, until it’s time to make a dump run and pick up a package at the post office. Things are supposed to start cooling down by then, so we can continue working around the tulips when we get back.

My daughter and I were also talking about the mulberry trees. Because they are so tiny, they should probably be kept in pots until next year, but we’re pretty terrible at keeping trees alive inside. The question is, would we be any better at keeping them alive outside?

Meanwhile, we need to get those potatoes planted soon!

Lots of work to do. The problem, aside from the heat we’re not used to yet, is that we’re all pretty broken, and can only work in short spurts to avoid hurting ourselves more, and rendering ourselves useless for days. Frustrating.

Well, we do what we can and adjust!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Quick morning update

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Check out the fur babies!

There was a milling crowd at the door when I came out with the kibble! I counted 20 this morning. Lots of hungry babies!

Yes, I consider them all babies. Including the old timers! 😄

We had a thunderstorm roll through at about 2am last night. I actually slept through it! My older daughter was up working, though, so after it ended, she went out and checked for any damage. Everything looked okay, thankfully.

While I did my rounds this morning, I spotted these.

Some of the tulips have flower buds!

Where my mother lives, just a 20 minute drive away, people have tulips that are already blooming, but we’re not quite there, yet!

It’s so nice to finally see things leafing out, too. Some of the silver buffalo berry have leaves showing, but their silvery colour makes them hard to see! Most other things just have leaf buds getting bigger, but not opening yet. With the rain we got, plus more in the forecast, things should start getting green soon.

I won’t be getting much work done outside today, though; I’m heading to my mother’s to help with errands. By the time I get back, we’ll be expecting more storms. We’ll see how things work out!

The Re-Farmer

Judgement!

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He’s back!

After none of us seeing him at all, yesterday, I was quite concerned about how Judgement was doing, so I was VERY happy to see him this morning! It looks like he spent our rainy night tucked warm and cozy in the shelf shelter.

His front paws look fine. I see no sign of injury. Not that I’m getting more than a glimpse, but he also followed me around while I did my rounds, as is his custom. No limping. No favouring of the paw. It’s as if there was never anything wrong! Whatever was causing him pain a couple of days ago seems to have worked itself out.

What a relief!

The Re-Farmer